


Get Faded

by peppermintshivers



Series: Renna Lavellan [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, Minor Lavellan/Solas, Modern AU, POV First Person, Poor Life Choices, Porn With Plot, Rough Sex, Sarcasm, Smut, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2020-03-09 03:52:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 124,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18908992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppermintshivers/pseuds/peppermintshivers
Summary: Forensic Psychology student Renna Lavellan just wants to lay low, forget her past, move on with her life, and get her degree. Her life of quiet avoidance has worked for her so far.Her roommate has other ideas, insisting that the two of them go out to the Divine Conclave, a hot new club with secret deadly ties.Before she realizes what's happening, Renna is pulled into a world where drugs and the people who make them run rampant. And law-abiding witnesses are hidden away for their own good.At least it isn’t all bad. The Detective responsible for her safety is pretty cute. Not that anything could possibly ever happenthere.Through it all, she has to wonder, will anything ever be the same again?Or will she be able to find a new normal in the chaos?





	1. Witness

“Hey, boring britches! We goin’ out tonight, or wot?”

“It’s Monday.”

“So?”

I sighed and turned to face my roommate, Sera, momentarily abandoning my textbook. “You know that I need to study for this test.”

She was leaning heavily on my doorframe, arms crossed in front of her petite form. A smattering of freckles graced her pale cheeks. Day old eyeliner rimmed pale grey-blue eyes. Her pale blonde hair was kept chronically short by her incessant inability to leave things alone. It looked like she had cut it again. Her bangs were choppy and uneven, and much shorter than when I had seen her at breakfast.

She snorted, pushing off from her perch against my bedroom door. “Pfft. Yer the last person in the world that needs to study _more_.”

“Did you cut your hair again?” The question was rhetorical of course, and meant to distract her.

She sank down on my bed, grabbing a handful of chips out of the bowl on my desk. “’Course I did. My bangs were gettin’ in my eyes again.”

“And did you use one of the kitchen knives again?”

“Yup!” She smiled brightly.

“Sera, we own scissors.”

“Pfft.”

“And am I going to find piles of hair all over the bathroom again?”

She shrugged. “Pro’ly.”

“Ugh.” It was like having a damned cat.

“Stop try’na change the subject.” She pointed one of my chips at me accusingly.

“I need to study.”

“Ya _need_ to _relax_.”

“And you sincerely believe that going out will help me relax?”

She shrugged. “Ya need to let loose every once in awhile. Get drunk. Find a cute boy. Make some mistakes.”

“Haven’t I made enough mistakes regarding ‘cute boys’?” I didn’t exactly have the best track record when it came to men.

“Geez, I didn’t say get into a relationship!” She grumbled. “Ya need to get laid.”

“Making mistakes with a ‘cute boy’ is how my mother ended up with me at age fifteen, you know,” I continued, ignoring her interjection.

“And I didn’t say be stupid! No babies til yer thirty.”

“That’s a lot closer than it used to be you know.”

“Fine, fifty. And stop doin’ that!”

“Doing what?”

“Distracting me!”

“Is that what I’m doing?” I asked innocently. Of course, it was exactly what I was doing.

She tossed my pillow at me. “Yeah. Now, stop. I know the bouncer at the Divine Conclave.”

I sighed. She was being particularly tenacious. “Already? They’ve only been open for two weeks.”

“Friend of a friend.” She said indicating how she knew the bouncer while waving her hand dismissively.

I really shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was. Sera made a living out of doing odd jobs for even odder people. She had amassed quite the network of misfits, and a contact list at least three miles long.

She had been on me to go out with her for literal years at this point. My resolve had slowly been weakening, but she didn’t need to know that.

“ _If_ I agree to go out with you _tomorrow_ night, will you leave me in peace to study for this test? It’s first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Fine, fine. Tomorrow night. I’ll drag you by your pointed ears if I hafta.” She pointed at me sternly. Stern was a funny look on her.

 ...

The next morning I left my Police Psychology class feeling confident that I had aced my test and headed to my second class of the morning.

Ancient Elvhen Science, Technology and Medicine, affectionately shortened to AESTM. It was my favorite class. It was the only elective that my full course load had allowed. The course itself was utterly fascinating to me, but the professor really was the icing on the cake.

Professor Solas knew the most obscure things about almost any topic you could name. He had a story for everything. He was the smartest man I knew. He was funny. He was charming.

Also, he was devastatingly handsome.

He paced back and forth across the front of the room as he lectured, hands clasped loosely behind his back.

His voice was captivating. He could read the phone book and I would be utterly entranced.

He always dressed in neutral tones. That day his sweater was a creamy beige color, and looked especially soft.

I wondered if it would feel as soft as it looked.

My eyes drifted up to his face.

His full lips looked like they would be particularly nice to kiss.

Those lips quirked in a little half smile as he said something particularly clever.

I would have bet money that his tongue was clever in other ways too.

His eyes were sharp, intelligent and blue-grey in color. I had once had the immense fortune of standing close enough to him to make out the little flecks of lilac surrounding his pupils.

Years of unfortunate ingrained conditioning had most elves I knew keeping their hair a little on the longer side in an attempt to mask their ears behind it.

His head was shaved bald, brazenly displaying his pointed ears in a challenge, defying anyone to tell him he wasn’t good enough simply because of the shape of his ears.

He was the whole package, smart, dry sense of humor, and drop dead gorgeous.

I had spent a great deal of class time memorizing his features. And more than a little time alone in my bed moaning his name into my pillow.

To say I had a little crush on him would have been an enormous understatement. It was silly, but it was safe, because never in a million years could he ever possibly return those feelings. He barely noticed me. At least I could take comfort in the fact that he more or less ignored all of his students equally.

 ...

After sitting through an afternoon of entirely boring—but entirely necessary to my degree—classes, I made my way home.

The University was within walking distance of our apartment.

The only down side was that winter was fast approaching and the sky was starting to darken around 4:00 pm each day.

Class was over at 5:00 pm, so I made the somewhat chilly half-hour long walk home in near darkness.

“You ready?” Sera asked in lieu of greeting as I opened the front door.

I sighed, kicking off my shoes. “I’ve barely gotten in the door, Sera.”

“Ya promised!” She whined.

“I know I'm a little out of touch with this sort of thing, but isn’t it a tad early to go out to a club? It’s only 5:30.”

“If I let ya go study now, I’ll pro’ly never get ya out of the room of yers!”

“Fine, fine. You want to put on a movie while I make dinner?”

 ...

We ate dinner and watched a movie, and I managed to stave off her impatient anticipation until 8:00pm.

I don’t know why she insisted on going out on a weeknight, but I was young. I could bounce back. Between working weekends and studying weeknights, I barely slept anyway.

I hadn’t been out to a club since before I had actually turned eighteen, sneaking in with a rather questionable fake ID. It had been seven years since I had last relented to Sera’s insistence that I have a social life outside of school.

I owned exactly two outfits that I considered to be even remotely appropriate to wear out clubbing, though neither one had ever seen the light of day. One was a slutty dress, all strappy and open, leaving very little to the imagination. The other was a shirt that I would pair with jeans. I wasn’t sure which would actually be considered suitable attire since I hadn’t heard much about the club itself.

We would be walking to the Divine Conclave and it was freezing outside. Which really made my decision for me. Definitely jeans.

I settled on a pair of dark skinny jeans with rips that might have been considered fashionable as long as no one was alerted to the fact that I had worn the rips into them myself.

I studied myself in the mirror.

I had no curves to speak of. I was just a waif of a girl—woman technically—at twenty-four.

My fiery red hair hung in loose curls around my face and shoulders, the tips of my pointed ears poking through.

I had always envied Sera’s freckles. Where her pale skin had a dusting of freckles, mine was entirely free of any markings. Though I was technically raised Dalish, I had never seen any real reason to get my vallaslin, my fear of needles far outweighing any worship I felt for the Creators.

My clover colored eyes were bordering on too large for my dainty elven face.

My lips were small, but at least they had a full pouty shape.

I was neither short nor tall, falling somewhere in the range of perfectly average for an elven woman.

I was pretty I supposed. But also in an average sort of way.

After rummaging though the depths of my closet, I emerged victorious clutching my clubbing appropriate shirt. It was a long sleeved, black, mesh top that I paired with a lacy, black, bralette underneath.

I threw my ‘University of Haven’ sweater on top.

Sera was hovering by the front door wearing a pair of plaidweave leggings and red tunic that looked like it had seen better days. But, she was cute so she could pull off the ‘homeless chic’ look.

“Wot the hell are ya wearin’?” She asked, indicating my outfit in a slightly offended manner.

“I could ask you the same thing. Is that what the kids wear out to the club nowadays? Guess I really am out of touch.”

“Fuck off.” She snorted. “Least I look like I’m going out to have fun, not study at the library. Why ya wearin’ that awful sweater?”

I crossed my arms. “It’s winter, and we live in the mountains, Sera. You’re going to freeze your ass off.”

“Ugh. Could you be any more lame?”

“Yes. Yes I can. Challenge accepted.”

Just to spite her, I went to the bathroom and threw my hair up into a messy bun on top of my head. Then I went to my bedroom and grabbed my glasses, which I normally only wore when I was reading, but I was willing to make an exception just to make a point.

I exited my bedroom, doing a little model twirl.

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Why are ya like this?”

“Oh, you know you love me.”

“Ugh. Bitch.” She said slinging an affectionate arm around my shoulder as we exited the apartment.

“Jerk.” I replied, arm moving around her waist. “What would I do without you?”

“Be stuck at home like a loser.”

“Yeah. But think how much studying I could get done.”

“Pfft. Ya study way too much. Ya only get to be young and stupid once.”

“Correction. Youth may be temporary, stupid is forever.”

“Only if ya make a habit outta it.”

 ...

There was a line clear around the block.

Sera ignored it and walked straight up to the large intimidating man half hidden in the shadow of the doorway.

“Back of the line, pipsqueak.” The voice was deep and authoritative.

“Oi, stop messin’ around.” Sera huffed up at him.

“You’re no fun, kid.” He ruffled Sera’s hair affectionately, stepping into the streetlight.

She patted down her hair with a glare. “Renna, Bull. Bull, Renna.”

It took me a moment for my eyes to adjust to the sheer size of him.

And then there were the horns.

Sweet merciful Creators, Bull was a Qunari.

Again, I don’t know why I was surprised. Sera knew _a lot_ of people.

Bull was built remarkably like a bull. Horns included. He was easily 6’8” and pure muscle. Despite the winter-esque weather, he wore no shirt. A sleeve of tribal tattoos worked its way over his chest, starkly contrasting his exposed grey skin.

I had to look way up to see his face, my own face being barely level with the bottom of his ribcage.

His right eye was concealed beneath an eye patch, scars snaking out from behind the cloth. He smiled down at me broadly and extended a hand that could have easily crushed my head if he so pleased. “It’s _the Iron_ Bull, actually.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” I shook his hand; trying not to laugh at how comically small mine looked against it.

He looked me over appraisingly. “Sera didn’t say you were a redhead.”

Sera rolled her eyes. “Bull has a _thing_ for redheads.”

“Is your husband a redhead?” I was trying to subtly let him know that I knew that he was married.

“Nope. But he’s an understanding man.” He winked at me. At least I think it was supposed to be a wink.

I must have looked slightly terrified because Sera came to my rescue.

“Oi, shove off, Bull.” Sera swatted his arm. “She doesn’t know yer jokin’.”

Bull let out a low chuckle and turned back to me. “So how do you know Sera?”

“She’s been my best friend since we were like four.”

He nodded knowingly. “Lifelong partners in crime then.”

“Nah. She’s on the straight and narrow, this one.” Sera jutted her thumb at me. “I practically had to drag her out tonight. Proper boring.”

I crossed my arms. “I am not boring.”

“Then let’s see who can do more shots.”

“Sera, I have a test in the morning.”

“Ya had one o’ those today.”

“I have more than one class.”

“Boring.”

“Ugh. Fine. You’re buying.”

Bull let out a laugh. “Put them on Dorian’s tab. I’ll let Krem know I’m sending you. Have fun, kids.”

“Thanks, Bull.” Sera gave him an enthusiastic wave as he let us into the packed club.

The place was insane. Dim lighting, loud music, a writhing mass of scantily clad bodies on the dance floor. I took a moment to let my eyes adjust to the low light.

“Who’s Dorian?” I asked over the music as she led me straight up the bar.

“Bull’s husband.”

“Oh, okay. And Krem?”

She nodded toward the bartender. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to get his attention, or if she was telling me that he was ‘Krem’. ‘Potentially Krem’ had dark hair that was cropped short on the sides. He had dark brown eyes and an easy smile.

The bartender grinned up at her, motioning that he would be a moment.

She turned to me. “So, tequila?”

“I haven’t been able to drink that shit since my sixteenth birthday. You know that.” When I turned sixteen, Sera had liberated a bottle of tequila from her foster mom’s liquor cabinet in celebration. Most of that night was a blur, except the part where I puked into my grandfather’s shoes. And he yelled at me for an hour straight.

“Oh yeah! That was hilarious.”

I sent her a withering glare.

“Fine, fine. What ya want then?”

“Let’s do vodka.”

The bartender made his way over. “Hey, Sera! Who’s your friend?”

“Renna.”

“The famous Renna?” He looked me over before turning to Sera with what I’m sure he thought was a hushed tone. “She’s cute.”

“And she has pretty decent hearing too.” I replied dryly, indicating my pointed ears.

It was hard to tell under the dim lighting of the club, but I swear I saw his face go red. “Oh, sorry I—“

I cracked a smile. “It’s okay. You’re pretty cute yourself.”

Sera rolled her eyes. “I didn’t bring ya here to flirt with Krem.”

“Are you sure? Cause we’ve already established that each of us thinks the other is cute.”

Sera turned to Krem, ignoring me entirely. “Bull let ya know we were comin’, yeah?”

Krem nodded.

“Brilliant! Vodka shots, and keep ‘em coming.”

...

We were about four shots in apiece when I finally started feeling the buzz of the alcohol. To be fair, those first four shots had gone by relatively fast. These days I mostly drank wine, hard liquor being something I had gotten far too much of in my youth.

“I want to climb Bull.” I announced, taking a sip of the beer I didn’t remember ordering but was pretty sure Sera had ordered for me. I didn’t even like beer. We were seated at the bar and Krem was keeping a pretty close eye on us, so I wasn’t too worried about drink tampering.

“Like sexy climb? Perv.”

“No! Course not! Course not! He’s married. I want to grab onto his horns and like climb him. Like a tree. No sexy, just tree.” I nodded matter-of-factly.

Sera giggled into her beer. “You’d pro’ly hafta to get him drunk first.”

“Nah. I can be pretty convincing when I bat my baby blues.”

“Yer eyes are green, ya dummy.”

“I know that. But he doesn’t know that.” I tapped a finger to my forehead.

She gave me a confused look. “Wot're ya on about?”

I regarded her seriously for a moment before I burst out laughing. “I have no fucking clue. I gotta piss.”

She clapped me on the back excitedly. “See, yer much funner once ya’ve had a few. Need me to come with?”

“Nah.” I waved her off. “I got this. I’m good.”

My foot caught got caught in the bar stool and I stumbled off it, barely catching myself on the bar. I righted myself quickly, making my head spin. “I’m good!”

“Ya sure ‘bout that?” She was giving me an intensely amused look.

I dusted myself off. “Yup! Now, which ways the bathroom?”

Sera pointed over her shoulder to a darkened corner of the club.

“Oh, that’s not ominous at all. I’ll see you in a few if I don’t get murdered first.” I saluted her and toddled off in the direction she had indicated.

Everything was wobbly.

Especially the bits that shouldn’t have been.

Like the fucking floor.

Why were none of the rooms labeled?

Ugh.

It was so dark.

At least the music wasn’t as deafeningly loud in this particular corner of the bar.

I went out for the first time in seven years and ended up alone, stumbling down a fucking murder hallway.

This was why I didn’t like the idea of going out and getting shitfaced.

Granted, Sera had offered to come with me.

But I didn’t need a babysitter.

I was a twenty-four year old woman.

I opened one of the doors at random. It was a janitor’s closet. I made a mental note of the sink just in case I couldn’t find an actual toilet.

Apparently I was a twenty-four year old woman who was willing to entertain the idea of pissing in a janitor’s sink.

I needed to get out less.

Or more, depending on who you asked.

I closed the door and moved on to door number two.

It was some sort of storeroom.

I was about to close the door when I heard hushed voices.

My need to pee was momentarily forgotten as my curiosity got the better of me.

I left the door open a crack, just in case I needed to make a hasty get away.

There were some shelves directly in front of the door.

I did my best super spy impression and tiptoed to the edge of the shelving, sticking to the shadows.

I poked my head around the corner cautiously.

About fifteen feet away in a dimly lit corner of the storeroom, two men stood before an old woman, who was seated in a chair.

One of the men had greasy, black shoulder length hair and a receding hairline. His skin was sallow, and his eyes were red-rimmed. He looked like the poster child for drug addiction.

The other man was freakishly tall—7’ tall at the very least—and had some sort of weird snarling mask covering the left half of his face. Glimpses of scarred skin snaked out from the edges of his mask.

Both were dressed in well-tailored, completely black, expensive looking suits. The masked man had some sort of hood obscuring part of his face.

The old woman was wearing an all white pantsuit. Her hair was short, also pure white, and meticulously styled. Even her eyebrows were a shocking white. She was the very image of innocence and virtue, especially next to the two men who looked particularly unsavory.

“What did you hope to accomplish in coming here tonight?” The man in the mask asked. His voice was a low growl with an accent that my drunken brain couldn’t quite place.

“If you’re going to kill me, then just do it. Spare me the scare tactics.” The old lady spat. Her accent was Orlesian. The tone didn’t at all match the vision she projected of someone frail and helpless.

What the fuck had I walked into?

“We are merely having a discussion.” The masked man said calmly.

“Is that what you call this? Holding an old woman in the storeroom of a disgusting night club?”

“Tsk. Tsk. You were the one slinking around here. You wanted us to catch you.”

“Were you hoping for a taste, most holy?” The greasy looking man asked with a sneer.

Most holy?

What?

She huffed. “I am already familiar with your product.”

“This is the new stuff. Fresh off the production line.” He held up a vial and shook it in front of her face. “This will make the red stuff look like fucking candy. Take too much and it will melt your fucking brain.”

Red stuff?

I didn't have long to ponder that thought. 

She knocked the vial out of his hand, demonstrating a strength that was surprising for such a frail looking old woman.

Whatever it was rolled towards me, and I held my breath, waiting for someone to come retrieve it. When they didn’t do so immediately, my drunk brain told me to pick it up and stick it in my pocket.

I should have left right then. No one had seen me. I was in the clear. Instead, my stupid drunk brain told me to take out my cell phone and start recording what I was witnessing.

My drunk brain hadn’t steered me wrong yet, so I did exactly that, making sure my phone was on silent and the flash was turned off.

“As I’m sure you are painfully aware, distribution has already begun.” The masked man informed her. “You’re powerless to stop us. Just like you were powerless against lyrium, and powerless once again with the red.”

Lyrium? This was about drugs?

“You won’t get away with this. The Police will see you pay.”

“Fuck the Police.” The greasy man spat.

“I grow bored of this.” The masked man said, making a vague gesture towards the old woman.

The greasy man moved to stand behind her, grabbing her arms and holding her in place despite her distinct lack of resistance.

The masked man produced a knife from the inner pocket of his suit.

He dragged the blade slowly—deliberately—down the side of her face, drawing a line of blood from her cheek.

She barely flinched.

Then, with a wicked smile and a quick flick of his wrist, the masked man sliced the old woman’s throat open.

For a moment, nothing happened and I started to wonder if maybe he had missed.

Then a waterfall of blood poured from her neck, soaking the front of her white shirt in column of cascading crimson.

I covered my mouth to keep from screaming, or vomiting, or both. I began backing slowly towards the door, hastily shoving my phone into the pocket of my jeans.

Backing blindly—and drunkenly—in a dark storeroom occupied to two murderous murders and their most recent murder victim really wasn’t one of my better ideas.

I knocked something over with a clattering crash.

Something wet and thick blossomed across the floor, soaking the edges of my shoes.

The man with the knife looked up sharply, trying to see into the darkness where I was hidden.

“Someone’s here! Don’t let them get away!” He shouted, waving his knife in my general direction.

I gave up on all pretense of sneaking and booked it out the door, slamming it shut behind me, ignoring the calls of ‘stop her!’

I ran straight onto the dance floor, moving between the writhing bodies, attempting to disappear into the crowd.

Shit. They had seen me well enough to distinguish that I was in fact female. Shit, shit, shit.

How much of me had they seen?

I ducked down, shrugging off my hoodie and my glasses and letting my hair down around my shoulders. I needed to blend in fast, or I was next.

I waded through the dance floor, before circling back to the bar where I had left Sera.

“Hey, where’d ya disappear to?” Sera asked as I slid onto the stool beside her.

“I was looking for the bathroom, remember?” My voice was shaky.

If she noticed, she didn’t let on. “Been gone an awful long time for someone just gone to take a piss, yeah? Is that code for ‘found some guy to hook up with’?”

I took a deep calming breath and rolled my eyes. “You got me. I left you to go sneak off and fuck some guy in a dark hallway.”

“Sounds like somethin’ ya repressed types would do.”

I shoved at her shoulder half-heartedly. She knew that I wasn’t repressed. She knew that it was a defense mechanism born of necessity.

“Wot happened to yer sweater?”

“Someone spilled something on it when I walked through the dance floor.”

“If ya woulda told me ya were all tarted up under that stupid thing, I wouldn’ta given ya such a hard time.”

Krem went to refill my beer glass and I shook my head.

‘Water,’ I mouthed.

He gave me a knowing wink and slid a glass of ice water my way.

“I’ve gotta take a piss.” Sera announced approximately three minutes after I had reoccupied my bar stool.

“Bathroom’s that way, Sera.” Krem pointed to the corner of the club opposite the one Sera had directed me to.

For fuck’s sake.

I was never taking directions from her while she was drunk ever again.

“I’ll come with you.” I didn’t particularly want to be left alone. Plus I actually still had to pee.

The bathrooms were slightly more well lit than the rest of the club, which really wasn’t saying much.

While I was peeing I took a moment to examine my shoes. They were ruined. Covered in something black and sticky.

I would deal with them in the morning.

When I was actually sober, not just sobered by a traumatic event.

As much as I would have loved to just run screaming from the club and forget everything that I had seen and heard, leaving too early would most likely paint a target not only on my back, but on Sera’s as well.

I had to stay. I had to buy myself time to figure out what the fuck to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> It's been a long ass time since I've posted any of my writing online (about 14 years, I think?), I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!


	2. Test

I stared up at my bedroom ceiling, wringing my hands together.

It had to be a dream.

Who would murder an old lady at a densely populated nightclub?

It would be pretty stupid.

So it had to have been a dream.

I was pretty sure I had slept.

A dream.

A terrible, horrible, stress induced dream brought on by poor diet, academic stress, ingestion of copious amounts of alcohol, and very little cumulative rest over the past nine years or so.

I needed a break.

I needed a _real_ break.

I needed—

“Hey Ren?” Sera called from the other side of my bedroom door. “Wot the hell is on yer shoes?”

“What?” I jumped out of my bed and hastily pulled on a pair of jeans. I poked my head out into the hallway.

Sera was holding up one of my sneakers on the tip of an outstretched finger, staring at it in mild disgust. The black sticky substance still covered the surface.

No.

_No, no, no._

_Shit._

I scrambled back into my room; searching for the hoodie I had been wearing the night before.

I reached into the pocket and there it was. Bold as day. The vial from the club.

Fuck.

And my fingerprints were all over it.

Double fuck.

Not a dream.

Definitely not a fucking dream.

“Wassat?” Sera asked, peering over my shoulder.

I was so used to her following me silently that I didn’t even jump at her unannounced presence. I hurriedly pushed the vial into the pocket of the jeans I was wearing. “If anyone asks, I was with you all night at the Divine Conclave, okay? I didn’t leave your side for a second.”

She levelled me with a look of unease. “Renna, yer scarin’ me. Wot’s in that vial?”

“I don’t know. Drugs probably.” I replied honestly, glancing down at my watch. Twenty minutes to 8:00 am. “Shit. I have to go. I’ve got class.”

“When ya get home, we’re talkin’ ‘bout this, yeah?” She crossed her arms.

I hurriedly stuffed my clothes from the night before into a ball and shoved them in a plastic bag. “Yeah. Sure. See you later.”

I grabbed a clean pair of sneakers from the closet and tossed my messed up ones from the previous night into a fresh plastic bag before throwing both bags into my backpack.

I wasn't sure how yet, but I would deal with them later.

I couldn’t bring myself to check the video that I vaguely remembered taking the night before. I didn’t have the time. And I also didn’t want to see exactly what I knew I would see.

 ...

My 8:00 am class didn’t allow me much time to linger on what I had seen the night before. Which was good. I needed to focus on anything but the murder I had witnessed.

I had a test in my second class. AESTM.

I burned through the test fast.

I knew the answers without having to think about them.

Which left me with far too much time for my overactive imagination to replay the events of the night before.

_Two men._

_One greasy._

_One disfigured, wearing a mask and a hood._

_A figure of pure white._

_A knife._

_Throat slit._

_Light fading from eyes._

_Blood pouring down white._

_Staining in a column of deep red._

Oh, Creators.

I was going to be ill.

I grabbed my paper and approached Professor Solas’ desk.

“Please return to your seat until the allotted time has passed.” He said without so much as an upward glance from his book.

“Professor—“

He sighed. “What is it, Miss Lavellan?”

So he did know my name after all.

Normally that would have had me giddy with joy.

“I’ve finished my test, Professor. May I please be excused? I think I’m going to be sick.”

He sighed again, this time looking up at me. He did a double take. “Are you all right?”

“Not particularly, no.”

He nodded toward the door. “Go ahead.”

I shot him a grateful look as I tore out the door.

I all but ran to the washroom.

I barely made it into a stall in time to relive the granola bar I had forced myself to eat before class.

Since I was already kneeling down in front of a toilet, I decided that it was a good a time as any to check the video on my phone. I made sure it was on silent before I opened it.

It was dark. Then three figures settled onto the screen. A flash of a knife, copious amounts of blood, and then everything went dark again.

As I suspected it would, my stomach protested at the sight.

 ...

There was only about ten minutes left of class when I was finally confident that I wouldn’t be heaving up anything else.

I rinsed out my mouth thoroughly and stopped by a vending machine to grab some gum before returning to class.

I reentered the room as quietly as possible, but my hasty exit seemed to have people watching for my return.

I tucked my hair behind my ear and kept my head down as I made my way back to my seat.

It was the longest ten minutes of my life. Even though I knew that everyone would be focused on their own tests, some little paranoid part of me was certain that they were all staring at me. Whispering about me. The paranoia may have had something to do with the vial of what may or may not have been drugs weighing down the pocket of my jeans.

Professor Solas stood to announce that time was up, dismissing us.

Relief settled briefly over me, but it was short lived. 

I had two more classes to make it through before I was free.

And I still hadn't decided what I was going to do.

I gathered my things and hurried to the front of the room.

Professor Solas held up a hand to stop my hasty exit.

I paused, looking up at him in confusion.

“Miss Lavellan, May I see you in my office please?” He gestured to the door tucked neatly between the blackboard and the far corner of the room.

I nodded numbly and followed as he led me into the adjacent room. His office.

I had never seen the inside before.

I had wondered about it of course.

Fantasized about a day when he would take me inside and _take me_. But those thoughts were far from my mind.

There weren’t any obvious personal touches.

No pictures.

No knick-knacks.

No potted plants.

His decoration of the space was no-nonsense.

A cursory glance around the room would lead someone to believe that there wasn’t anything of the man himself reflected in his office.

But I could see it.

This room _was_ him.

The shelves upon shelves of books.

The neat stack of books on the corner of his desk.

They weren’t all textbooks.

And the ones that were certainly weren’t on any subjects that he actually taught.

There were books on anything you could possibly imagine.

Languages—Tevene, Antivan, Orlesian.

Math—Advanced Calculus, Advanved Probability and Statistics.

Science—Advanced Biochemistry, Advanced Physics.

Business. Marketing Strategies.

I stared wide-eyed around the room as I tried to take in all of the titles. Even though I was still shell shocked, there was a fairly decent chance that I wouldn’t get another opportunity like this again.

“Miss Lavellan, please have a seat.” He gestured to the chair in front of his desk and examined me closely. “What seems to be the problem?”

I sat in the chair. “I went out with my roommate last night.”

“Ah. So this is a case of overindulgence at an inopportune time.” He leaned against the front of his desk. Right in front of me. It put his crotch at face height, which normally would have had me distracted beyond belief, but my mind was otherwise occupied. Was he seriously that unaware of himself? Or was it some sort of power move?

“No.” I shook my head. “Well, there was some _indulging_ , yes but that’s not—I mean—I-I-I—“

“Take a deep breath.”

I took a shuddering breath. Then another. Shit. If I said it out loud, that made it real.

“It’s all right. Everything is going to be all right.” He passed me a tissue from the box on the corner of his desk.

I hadn’t even realized that I had started crying. I took it and dabbed at my face hastily. “I—there was—I can’t—“

“Start from the beginning.” His calm authoritative voice had me focusing immediately, much like it did during class hours.

“Last night I went out with my roommate. We went to that new club…The Divine Conclave. Have you heard of it?”

He gave me an appraising glance, as if he were wondering what I would be doing in a place like that. “I am vaguely familiar, yes.”

“We were having this stupid competition to see who could do more shots, and I was bordering on pretty wasted when I went to find the washroom…I was opening doors at random and I found the storeroom and—I saw—I saw—she was just an old woman, you know?” My brain replayed the scene over again, bringing on another wave of nausea. I stared down at my hands. “And they just…then I ran. I don’t know if they saw me, but I ran.”

“Someone was hurt?”

I shook my head. “Worse.”

“Have you gone to the Police?”

“No, but I have to. Don’t I?” It was a stupid question. I knew I had to go to the Police. I had witnessed a fucking murder. I had video proof of a fucking murder.

He considered me for a moment, crossing his arms over his chest in thought. “Not necessarily. It may be in your best interests to just forget what you saw. Unless you wish to draw unnecessary attention to yourself.”

I finally met his gaze, confused. “What? That's—”

He sighed, uncrossing his arms and leaning forward. “Perhaps I am being selfish.”

What was he saying? “I’m not sure that I understand, Professor.”

He focused his gaze on the floor before looking back up at me. “If something were to happen to you, I’m not sure what I would do.”

“Wait, what?” I was completely dumbfounded. I had never expected those words to come out of his mouth in that particular order.

He placed a finger under my chin, fixing me with a small smile that had my insides fluttering. “I’ve come to care for you, Renna. And I would hate to see you get hurt.”

Apparently he knew my first name too. My pulse quickened, pounding in my ears. “You…care for me?”

“You’re a brilliant student, and…” His gaze dropped to my lips.

“And?” I breathed. This had taken a _very_ unexpected turn.

“If I may be so bold, I find you stunning.” He pressed his lips to mine gently.

Despite the feather light kiss, my entire body was electrified. It felt like I was dreaming. I never wanted that moment to end.

All too soon, he pulled away. His hand lingered on my cheek. “Promise me that you won’t do anything rash.”

I nodded. “I promise.”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare for my next class.” He straightened and gestured toward the door.

“Thank you, Professor. For, uh listening to me. Not for the kiss. But also, thanks for that too, I guess. Um…I’m just going to—“ Apparently kissing him turned me into a complete blathering idiot. I grabbed my bag and made a hasty retreat.

Once I was in the relative privacy of the washroom, I touched my fingers to my lips as if to remind myself that the kiss was real.

It had happened.

Professor Solas had kissed me.

He cared for me.

He _liked_ me.

He wanted me to be safe.

I felt a big stupid grin spreading across my face.

That knowledge was enough to push the thoughts of the previous night from my mind for the remainder of the school day.

 ...

So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

What I really wanted to do was go lay down and not move for at least three days. Preferably with Professor Solas keeping me company in my bed.

But for some reason after my final class, I found myself standing on the steps of the Police station, hovering in what could probably be considered a suspicious manner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a little shorter than the average one will be, but it was tough to make it longer without adding a ton of unnecessary crap, so it is what it is. -shrugs-
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Custody

I took a deep breath and entered the Police station.

I didn’t know how any of this was supposed to work.

It wasn’t like I went around witnessing murders every day.

The last time I had been in a Police station had been seven years ago, for very different, very personal reasons.

The front lobby was a small room, with a large bulletproof window separating me from the officer sitting at the desk.

That was very welcoming.

I approached the desk.

“How can I help you?” The officer asked. He was very nondescript. Perfectly average looking. Brown hair. Blue eyes. His nametag said ‘Jim’, giving no indication whether that was his first name, or his last name.

I sucked in a deep breath. The words came out in a quiet rush, “I…uh…wanted to report a murder?”

He looked at me appraisingly. “You sure about that, Miss?”

“Yes. I witnessed a murder last night at the Divine Conclave.” I attempted to make my voice a little more assertive, but it cracked on the work ‘murder’.

“We take these things very seriously, Miss.” He sounded almost bored.

“Good, because this isn’t a joke.” I crossed my arms. “Why would anyone joke about this sort of thing?”

He gave a sort of half shrug. “People are sick, Miss. The Divine Conclave, you said? That new club on corner of Temple Street and Sacred Ashes Boulevard, correct?”

“Yes.”

“That’ll be Detective Pentaghast’s jurisdiction. Just give me a moment please.”

“Sure.” I fidgeted with my sleeves.

He picked up the phone on his desk and dialed. “Detective Pentaghast. I have a woman here saying that she witnessed a murder at the Divine Conclave.” A pause. “Yes, of course.”

I looked around uneasily. There wasn’t anyone else in the waiting room, but that still didn’t seen like something that he should be announcing to the world. The fact that I had already announced it myself was beside the point.

“Please have a seat. She’ll just be a moment.” He gestured towards the dingy looking chairs that lined the walls of the waiting area.

Approximately two minutes later a woman with a stern face appeared at the side door. She had a scar on the left side of her face, running from just below her cheekbone to her jaw. She couldn’t have been much more than ten years older than me, putting her in her late thirties at the most. Everything about her appearance just screamed ‘no-nonsense’, from her short dark hair, to her pressed white shirt, black dress pants, and sensible black shoes. There was a badge at her hip and a holstered gun at her waist held in place by a shoulder harness.

Her brown eyes scrutinized me carefully for a moment. “I am Detective Cassandra Pentaghast. Would you mind coming with me, Miss…?”

Her accent was Nevarran.

“Renna Lavellan.” I supplied after a brief pause.

She made a note in one of the many manila files she was carrying. “Phone number? Address?”

I rattled them off for her.

She glanced back up at me. “Would you mind coming with me, Miss Lavellan?”

I nodded, following her through the door and down a series of winding hallways.

I would most likely need an escort to find my way out.

We eventually stopped at what turned out to be an interrogation room.

“Please, have a seat.” As she set her folder down on the table she gestured to the chair behind it. “Can I get you anything? Water, coffee?”

I sat down in the chair, vaguely aware that I was sitting in a seat almost exclusively reserved for criminals. “No, thank you.”

“Officer Jim said that you think you witnessed a murder.”

I bristled a little at her tone. “What’s with all of the skepticism? I did witness a murder. At the Divine Conclave.”

“Then why didn’t you contact the Police immediately?”

I crossed my arms. “I was scared! I thought that the _murderers_ were coming after me.”

She considered me for a moment, as if she suspected that I was guilty of something and she could get me to confess exactly what it was just by staring at me. She leaned against the table in a manner that suggested she was used to intimidating people into confessions, hands spread wide, shoulders tensed. “Tell me what happened. Spare no details.”

It worked. Even separated by a table, I was mildly terrified of her. “I went out with my roommate, Sera. She knows one of the bouncers. He goes by the name ‘the Iron Bull’. I seriously doubt that’s his real name though. She wanted to get me to loosen up a little, so we started hitting the shots pretty hard—“

She sighed, rubbing her forehead in exasperation as she leaned back. “So you were intoxicated.”

“Yes.” I replied patiently. “I went to find a washroom and I found a storeroom instead. I heard voices, so I snuck closer. I saw two men and a little old lady. Both of the men were wearing expensive looking black suits. One of the men had some sort of snarling mask covering half of his face. The other had greasy shoulder length black hair. He had the complexion of a lyrium addict. The three of them talked, then the greasy guy held the old woman’s arms while the masked guy slit her throat.”

Thinking about it clinically staved off the nausea, temporarily at least.

Something in my face must have read as sincere because she actually backed off. “That…must have been terrible for you to witness. Can you describe the woman you saw?”

“Older…mid 70s I think. Short white hair. White eyebrows. Orlesian accent. She was dressed nicely too. A spotless white pantsuit.”

A grim look passed over Detective Pentaghast’s face as she rifled through her stack of folders. She placed a picture on the table and slid it toward me. “Is this the woman you saw?”

I stared at it for a moment. It was a headshot, professionally done, a carefully benevolent smile gracing her pale wrinkled features. It was difficult to see her face without imagining the color draining from it as the blood drained from her neck. My reply came out as a strangled sort of squeak, “Yes.”

“Are you certain?” She demanded.

I tore my gaze away from the picture, meeting her eyes and forcing myself to sound stronger than I felt. “Yes.”

“You said you were fairly intoxicated.”

“I know what I saw.”

The grim expression gave way to the briefest moment of utter devastation before settling back to grim.

“Who was she?” I didn’t know what else to say. I had a feeling that she wouldn’t care to be comforted by some random girl, and I didn’t know who this woman was to her anyway.

“Divine Justinia.”

I felt my eyes widen in surprise. “As in—“

She nodded solemnly. “Yes. Head of the Chantry.”

That was a pretty high profile murder for someone as low profile as me to witness. “Well, shit.”

“Concisely put.”

“So that’s why the greasy guy called her ‘most holy’. I thought he was just being an asshole. Why would the head of the Chantry be slumming it in the back of a dirty night club?”

“That is what I intend to find out. Would you be able to identify the men who killed her?”

“Yes. Of course.” Their faces were burned into my mind after all.

She produced another picture from her folder. “Are these the men you saw?”

The next photo she showed me looked as if it had been obtained through slightly more dubious channels. The two men were exiting a warehouse. The picture was zoomed in on their faces. Everything else was severely out of focus. There was no mistaking it. “That’s them. Both of them. Who are they?”

“Corypheus is the man in the mask. Raleigh Samson is his second.”

“And, they’re what exactly? Drug lords? Because they look like drug lords.” I was half-joking.

She gave me an un-amused look. “Yes.”

My stomach twisted. “Oh. So, very dangerous with a large network of thugs to do their bidding. Fantastic. What happened to Corypheus’ face?”

“Not that it is really any of your concern, but as far as we are aware, he was caught in a fire at one of his lyrium production facilities. Can you tell me anything else about what you saw?”

“The woman—Divine Justinia—managed to land a hit before they— _before_ —and Samson dropped this.“ I produced the vial from my pocket and offered it to her for inspection.

She grabbed a glove from her pocket and took the vial, examining it closely. “You stole from a crime scene?”

“It wasn’t technically a crime scene yet when I picked this up.” I reminded her.

“Cassandra, is that what I think it is?” A woman with a brilliant orange bob and an Orlesian accent had suddenly appeared at the door. She was strikingly pretty.

Detective Pentaghast shot the woman an annoyed look. “Leliana, the Wardens have no jurisdiction here.”

She was a Warden? That meant military. Just how big was this thing that I had drunkenly stumbled onto?

“If it has to do with Justinia, then it is my jurisdiction.” The woman—Leliana—replied evenly. “And I’m no longer with the Wardens. You are aware of that.”

Detective Pentaghast crossed her arms. “Well, you are no longer with the Police either. And free agents _most definitely_ do not have any sort of jurisdiction here.”

Leliana ignored Detective Pentaghast, turning instead to me. “Did the man say anything about this?”

I looked between the two women. Leliana’s face showing polite—if somewhat masked—interest, and Detective Pentaghast’s showing complete and utter irritation. I decided to answer the question. “He said, and I quote ‘this will make the red stuff look like fucking candy. Take too much and it’ll melt your fucking brain’.”

“You were intoxicated,” Detective Pentaghast reminded me again, unnecessarily. “Are you certain that’s what you heard?”

I crossed my arms. Her repeated accusations about my intoxication level were starting to get old. “Yes. I'm sure.”

Leliana took the vial from Detective Pentaghast carefully by the sides of the lid, despite the glare that the other woman threw her way. She held it up to the light. The light bounced off the green crystals in a way that could almost be considered beautiful. “On the streets they call it ‘the Fade’. It’s a mind-altering substance, far worse than red lyrium. Once you get a taste of the Fade, you’re never the same again. It alters your perception of reality.”

“Leliana, would you kindly leave? You are impeding an open investigation.” Detective Pentaghast held out one hand for the vial and motioned for the door with the other. “We will need to test this before we can confirm whether it is or is not ‘the Fade’.”

Leliana exited the room with her lips pursed petulantly.

Detective Pentaghast closed the door before turning back to me with a slightly strained look, rubbing her forehead in exasperation. “I apologize for the interruption. Let us get back on task. Did Corypheus or Samson see you?”

“I don’t know. It was dark…I…when I left the room I knocked something over. Loudly. It was sticky, and black and it ruined my shoes. I brought them with me. As well as the clothes I was wearing. I don’t know if that’s important or not.” I produced the bags from my backpack and placed them on the table.

She glanced into the bag with my shoes briefly, nose wrinkling in disgust. “I will send all of this to the lab to have it analyzed. Now, you were saying whether or not you think they say you?”

“They definitely heard me. And they saw enough to know that I’m female. They chased after me into the club, but I lost them, I think. I was wearing a hoodie, and glasses, and my hair was up. I let my hair down and took off my hoodie and glasses when I got to the dance floor.”

“That was some quick thinking.” There was a begrudging sort of admiration in her voice.

“I can be pretty clever when my life is in danger. I really don’t know how much of me they were actually able to see. Or if they were able to read my sweater…it’s a school sweater. It says ‘University of Haven’ on it.”

She mulled everything over for a moment, then the suspicious glare returned. “There is no way that you are this unlucky. You must have been there for a reason. Who are you, really?”

“I’m no one. A student, studying Forensic Psychology. I stay home and I study. The first time I go out with my roommate in my entire college career, and I witness a fucking murder.”

Her brow arched. “You are studying Forensic Psychology, something directly related to a career in law enforcement, and you waited this long to report a crime?”

“Studying and witnessing are two very different things, Detective.”

“I suppose that you are right.”

“I—uh…also have a video. That quality isn’t the greatest but—”

Her gaze turned sharp. “Why did you not lead with that?”

I shrank away from her. “Because you are very intimidating?”

Her eyes narrowed a fraction more. “Show me the video.”

I produced my phone, cueing up the video and handing it to her.

I could guess exactly when she got to the part with Divine Justinia’s untimely demise. She flinched, the motion so small that I would have missed it if I hadn’t been watching her carefully.

After watching the video a few more times, she handed me back the phone. “Forward this to me at once.”

She produced a business card, and I did as she asked.

“So…” I said after a moment of silence. “What happens now?”

“If you are amenable, I will be placing you under protective custody.”

“And if I’m not amenable? Just out of curiosity.”

She crossed her arms and leveled me with a glare. “You’ll be placed under protective custody within the precinct. And that will not be fun for you, or the officer assigned to you.”

She was right. Being locked up in a cell most definitely did not sound like my idea of a good time. “I am amenable to free range protective custody.”

“Good. I am glad to hear it. I believe we have everything we need from you for now. I will be in contact with you if we need anything further. You will be free to go in a moment.” She made her way to the door.

I followed her lead, stopping just short of the door.

“Wait here. Please.”

I turned back and leaned against the edge of the table.

I still had a decent view out the door.

Leliana pounced on Detective Pentaghast as soon as she opened the door. “She was the last person to see Justinia alive, and you’re just going to let her walk out of here? Alone?”

Detective Pentaghast let out a disgusted noise. “Who allowed Leliana back in the viewing room?”

A group of officers standing by the door pointedly looked away.

She sighed and turned back to Leliana. “Of course not. It is none of your business, but I was about to arrange for her to be placed in protective custody. If you are going to eavesdrop Leliana, please do so for the entire conversation.”

She moved past Leliana and out of the limited range of my view.

“I was about to come find you.” Detective Pentaghast said in lieu of greeting to whomever she had spotted.

“What can I do for you, Cassandra?” The responding voice was masculine and polite.

Detective Pentaghast’s voice dropped to a murmur and the man’s did the same.

Thanks to my elfy hearing, I was able to catch bits and pieces of their whispered conversation.

The words ‘witness, murder, Justinia, Corypheus, Samson,’ and ‘custody’ from Detective Pentaghast.

The man hesitated, saying he didn’t think it would appropriate, given his history.

Detective Pentaghast said something about him giving himself too little credit.

He hesitated briefly again before saying he would do it.

Detective Pentaghast reentered the interrogation room with a man in tow. “This is Detective Rutherford. He will be in charge of your safety for the time being.”

“That might be a tall order with drug king pins after me.” I extended my hand. “Renna Lavellan.”

He gave my hand a single quick but firm shake. “Detective Cullen Rutherford.”

Detective Cullen Rutherford was a very attractive man.

He was a good head taller than me.

Perfectly tousled hair the color of gold, warm honey colored eyes. Pale skin. Day old stubble covering a strong jaw. A scar on the right of his upper lip. Broad shoulders. Made of muscle.

Definitely attractive.

His polite smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. There was a hint of something deeper behind them, a sort of inner pain that—it was then that I realized I had been staring into his eyes.

Woops.

It tended to come off as unnerving when I made extended eye contact with people given my large elfy eyes.

Detective Pentaghast’s phone went off. She looked down at it. “I have to take this. Please excuse me.”

With that I was ‘alone’ with Detective Rutherford.

“So…which way is out?” I asked. Being that deep inside the Police station was starting to put me on edge.

“This way please.” He indicated for me to follow him.

“How does this work? You follow me around everywhere until the bad guys are caught?”

“Either myself or my officers will keep an eye on you at all times until the situation is resolved, yes.”

“Sounds pretty boring for you guys. I’m not exactly an exciting person to follow around.”

“Cassandra mentioned that you were studying Forensic Psychology at the University of Haven.”

“Yes.”

“And what do you hope to become with that degree?”

“Ideally a Forensic Psychologist. I want to profile criminals for the Wardens.”

He threw a confused look in my direction. “The Wardens? Why?”

“High level government agency means decent pay and decent benefits.”

“So money is the driving factor for your career choice?” He nodded as if he had already decided that he was right.

“Of course not.” I crossed my arms. “You asked ‘why the Wardens’ not ‘why forensic psychology’. I want to help people. _That_ is the driving factor for my career choice. Financial security is however definitely _a_ factor for my chosen branch of law enforcement.”

“So you spend a great deal of time at school then?”

I nodded. “Between classes and studying, school occupies about 95% of my waking time.”

“And the other 5%?”

“Is spent working.”

“Working?” He repeated as if he wasn’t sure he had heard me right.

“I work at a gas station a couple of blocks from my place Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I have to be there for 7:00 pm tonight.”

His brow rose in confusion. “Today is Wednesday.”

“I’m aware.” I sighed. “I agreed to pick up an extra shift as a favor to the owner before all of this shit happened.”

“And what time is your shift over?”

We had reached the front steps.

I clutched my jacket tighter around myself against the chill in the air. “1:00 am.”

“Maker’s breath. When do you sleep?”

I shrugged. “I can sleep between 2:00 am and 7:00 am if I’m so inclined. But realistically, I’ll either sleep when I’m dead, or when I’m fully employed in my chosen career path. Whichever comes first, Detective.”

He glanced down at his watch. “My shift is technically over now, so I’ll have some officers keep an eye on you at your place of employment, and they’ll follow you to your home as well…” He paused. “Unless you would feel more comfortable having me watch over you personally.”

“Oh, no. It’s all right. You go home and get some sleep. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Here.” He handed me a business card. “Call me if you need anything, no matter the time. And text if you don’t feel safe calling. Do not worry about waking me up, I am a light sleeper.”

“Thank you, Detective. Now, about these officers…how…discreet will their presence be?”

“You won’t even know that they’re there.” He assured me with a small smile.

“I hope not. I’ll never hear the end of it from my boss if I show up escorted by uniformed officers.”

“Are you heading straight to work from here?”

“That was the plan.”

“Would you like a ride?”

I debated for a moment. It would be much easier for someone from the Police to keep an eye on me if I accepted a ride from someone from the Police. I knew he was just being polite, but it was also freezing outside. “Sure, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Not at all. I’ll keep watch until my men arrive.”

I knew there was no point in arguing, so I nodded. “Okay.”

I followed him to the parking lot.

His car—whether it was his personal car or it belonged to the Police was unclear—was sleek, black and looked brand new.

The inside had heated leather seats. The dash had a fancy navigation system.

I told him the address and didn’t miss the way his expression twisted into an almost imperceptible grimace.

“And you live a few blocks from there?”

“Yup. Got a problem with my neighborhood?”

“Well, no.” He hesitated briefly. “It’s just on the…rougher end of town.”

“It’s walking distance to the University. And I’m a broke ass student.”

He didn’t say anything else as we drove.

We pulled up to the gas station.

“Would you like one of my officers to escort you home after work?” He asked.

I paused with my hand on the door handle. “No, it’s all right. My roommate would have a conniption fit if she saw me getting out of some stranger’s car.”

“I’m afraid I must insist.”

“Insist all you want, but I’m not going to let this whole ‘protective custody because I witnessed some drug lords murder the head of the Chantry’ thing ruin my life.”

He sighed. “Fine. I will see you in the morning then, Miss Lavellan.”

“See you tomorrow. Have a good sleep, Detective.” I exited the vehicle.

I took a moment to compose myself and plaster on a fake smile before entering the building.

“Hey, Varric.” I greeted, nodding to the beardless dwarf behind the counter. “How’s it going?”

He was built like a brick. Short and sturdy. All muscle. His collared shirt was unbuttoned far past the point of decency, showing off frankly alarming amounts of strawberry blond chest hair. His nose had a scar across the bridge. He put down the magazine he was reading and grinned up at me. “Oh, you know, Poppy. Living the dream.”

Varric had a thing for nicknames. I was ‘Poppy’ because of my bright red hair.

Despite the fact that he was being sarcastic, he actually was ‘living the dream’. Not only was he the owner of multiple small businesses around the city, he was also a best-selling author.

Even though he had businesses in locations where he was much less likely to get shot, or stabbed, or both, he liked to spend a lot of his time at this particular shitty gas station.

He had once told me that it was because the people on this end of town were much more interesting than anywhere else.

They made for better character reference.

“So, you got a hot new boyfriend?” Varric asked as I helped him restock the magazine rack.

“Who?”

“The guy who dropped you off. Curly.”

I swatted at his arm with a rolled up magazine. “No. He’s a friend.”

“Didn’t know you had any friends besides me and Buttercup.”

Buttercup was Varric’s nickname for Sera. The two had met briefly and annoyingly hit it off immediately, bonding over their shared interest in giving me a hard time.

“Of course I do.” I didn’t. But he really didn’t need to know that.

“Name one.”

“Curly. Apparently.”

“Fine, fine. I’m going to head out if you’re all good here, Poppy.”

I smiled up at him from my spot on the floor. “I’m always good.”

 ...

Work was uneventful as usual.

Wednesdays were apparently especially boring compared to the weekend shifts.

Sera had called around 7:15pm, irate, and wondering where the hell I was, reminding me that I had promised to talk to her about the D-R-U-G-S that I had on me that morning. Apparently that morning both of us had forgotten I had picked up a shift. After assuring her that I was fine and hadn’t been gunned down in the street, I told her that I would talk to her in person, because I didn’t feel particularly comfortable discussing that sort of thing while I was at work, even if work was dead.

I kept myself awake for the remainder of my shift by working on a paper I had due the following week.

At 1:00 am on the dot I closed up and cashed out.

It seemed like kind of a weird time for a business to stay open til, especially on a weekday, but I had never actually brought it up to Varric.

The walk home was short. More of a run really, as the temperature had dropped another few degrees while I had been all warm and cozy inside the gas station.

I opened the front door to my building, walking past the perpetually out of order elevator and up three flights of stairs.

I was out of breath when I got to my floor.

It was definitely time to get back into cardio.

I was starting to get flabby and easily winded.

I went to unlock my door and noticed something very peculiar.

It was open a crack.

Like someone had let themselves in and forgotten to close it.

Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	4. Protection

I entered cautiously, grabbing an umbrella from the closet for an improvised weapon. A quick traipse around the apartment told me that whoever it was hadn’t made it further than the front door.

Sera was out with her girlfriend, so at least I knew that she was all right.

I didn’t have any way to contact the officer(s?) who was (were?) supposed to be watching me from the shadows. I felt kind of stupid that the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.

I wondered if it was something that I should call Detective Rutherford about directly.

Or if I should stand outside my apartment building and wave my arms around until I attracted the attention of the officer(s)?

That had the potential to attract the attention of the would be robbers too.

Nothing was missing.

More harm had been done to the potential ‘thief’ than to the apartment or anything in it.

It was still the sort of thing that the Police would want to know about, right?

I sat down on my bed and toyed with Detective Rutherford’s business card.

I definitely needed to call him.

Shit.

I dialed his number, holding my breath as the line rang.

He _had_ told me to call any time if I needed something.

“Hullo?” Came the sleep murmured greeting.

He had been asleep.

Of course he had.

Normal people slept at night.

Right.

This was a thing I knew.

“Hey, uh, Detective Rutherford? It’s Renna. Renna Lavellan.”

“Miss Lavellan? What time is it?”

“A little after 1:30 am.”

“Did something happen? Are you all right?” His voice was instantly alert. I heard rustling that sounded like he was hastily throwing on some clothes.

“I’m fine, but uh…someone tried to break into my place.”

The rustling paused. “Tried?”

“Well, they didn’t get past the front door for reasons that would be easier to show you rather than tell you.”

“Are you somewhere safe?”

“I mean, technically, yes.”

“Technically?” He repeated skeptically.

“I’m at home. And home _is_ technically safe.”

“Text me your address. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” His voice was all business.

“Oh, no. You don’t have to bother. It just seemed like something I should tell you about, I guess?” I replied lamely. “I’m fine. Really. I would have called the officers who are watching me, but I wasn’t sure how to contact them. I never thought to ask. I apologize for waking you.”

“It’s my job, Miss Lavellan. If you’re sure you don’t want me to come over, I’ll have the amount of officers watching over your place doubled. And I’ll speak to my men.”

“Nothing screams ‘in trouble with the law’ like having armed Police officers sitting right outside my apartment door.” I mused mostly to myself. “The would-be intruders could still be watching the place. I don’t exactly want to alert them to the fact that I’m in protective custody.”

“Protective custody does you no good if you’re dead. And my men have far more discretion than that.”

“I suppose so. I haven’t seen one of them yet.”

“One of them will escort you to school in the morning as well.”

I didn’t want to be a nuisance. Break-ins happened, especially in my neighborhood. It was nothing to get overprotective about. “Oh, that’s not neces—“

“Yes. It is.” His tone was no-nonsense. And sort of sexy. I mentally filed that thought away to be dealt with much, _much_ later.

“All right, you’re the boss.”

“I will be in touch with you in the morning. Good night, Miss Lavellan.”

I refrained from pointing out that it was technically morning already. “Night, Detective.”

...

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t actually get all that much sleep.

**[6:36 am] Cullen:** Miss Lavellan, would you kindly meet me at the campus coffee shop once Officer Lace Harding drops you off?  
**[6:37 am] Me:** Sure thing, boss man. My class is at 8:00 am. How long do you need to talk?  
**[6:37 am] Cullen:** 15 minutes should be sufficient.  
**[6:38 am] Me:** So I’ll meet Officer Harding at my front door no later than 7:30 am.  
**[6:38 am] Me:** Have your underlings still got my six in the meantime?  
**[6:45 am] Cullen:** Yes, you are still under observation. I will personally relieve my officers once you arrive on campus.

I could practically hear the exasperation in his text message.

I was secretly delighted by it.

I had a quick shower.

It did nothing to bring color to my face.

I looked dead.

I had been half joking when I told Detective Rutherford that I didn’t sleep. I actually cherished those five hours of peaceful, uninterrupted sleep that I normally managed to get when I was working.

I was exhausted.

I approached the front door, not exactly sure what a ‘Lace Harding’ would look like.

There was only one person waiting in the cramped lobby.

“Renna?” She asked. “I’m Lace Harding. Cullen sent me.”

Apparently, Lace Harding was a dwarf.

She was adorable. She had piercing green eyes. A face full of freckles. Auburn hair pulled back into a low bun. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a University of Haven sweater.

I nodded, giving her a smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“Come with me please.” She led me to an unmarked car. At least I wasn’t being toted around in a squad car.

“Did you go to the University?” I indicated her sweater.

She looked down with a small chuckle. “Yeah. Makes it easy to blend in, right?”

The two-minute car ride passed with idle small talk.

Lace had grown up in Redcliffe and attended the University of Haven Police Academy.

“Thanks for the ride, Officer Harding.” I said cheerfully with my hand on the handle. “It’s been a pleasure talking to you.”

“Lace, please.” She gave an easy smile.

I returned it broadly. “I’ll see you around, Lace.”

“Not if I’m doing my job right.” She replied with a wink as I exited the car.

 ...

I met Detective Rutherford at the campus coffee shop exactly like he had asked.

He was waiting out front, two coffees in hand.

“Good morning, Miss Lavellan. I got you a coffee, but I wasn’t sure how you take it, so it’s just black.” He offered up a cup.

“Black is fine. Thanks.” I took it gratefully and took a nice long sip, relishing the bitter burn. I started walking towards the main building. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

He followed, easily keeping pace with me. “Based on the events of last night, I believe that it would be best to have you under constant Police supervision.”

“So, what? You’re going to follow me to all of my classes? You might stick out a bit.” I looked over his outfit critically. Dark jeans, white button up shirt, black tie, and a tastefully distressed leather motorcycle jacket with some sort of awful red and black fur collar. He was dressed far too nicely to be mistaken for a poor college student. Age wise he could pass. Probably. He didn’t look that much older than me. He also had a laptop bag slung across his chest, which only helped with the student illusion.

“It is my recommendation that you stop attending your classes altogether until all of this has been resolved.”

I stopped and crossed my arms. “Ha. That’s hilarious. I’m here on a scholarship.”

He nearly ran into me. “This is your life we’re talking about.”

“School is my life, Detective.”

“Cullen. You should probably call me by my first name while we’re out in public.”

“Well, _Cullen_ , if my grades dip below a 3.8 GPA, the government pulls my scholarship and the last seven years of my life go down the toilet. I literally cannot afford to miss any classes. So, I won’t be.”

“Surely you can’t be serious.”

I gave him my best bratty smile. “I am, and don’t call me Shirley.”

“Cute. Miss Lavellan, I would strongly advise against attending your classes.”

“That’s nice, _Cullen_. I’m not going to sit at home twiddling my thumbs waiting for the Police to sort this out. Regular lyrium has been in distribution for decades. The red stuff has been on the streets for a little over four years. I’m not putting my life on hold for another decade or twelve waiting for the Police to get their shit together.”

He exhaled slowly, as if he was attempting to be patient with a child. “Fine. You may continue to attend your classes for the time being. But if it becomes a further risk to your safety, I may need to place you under house arrest.”

“Hmm.” Was all I said in reply. He wouldn’t be winning that argument no matter what he said. When persuasion failed, I was very good at sneaking out of places.

“Take me to your first class.”

“First, are you wearing a shirt under that?” I pointed to his button up shirt.

“What? Why?” He looked slightly alarmed.

“I’m assuming that there’s supposed to be some sort of element of discretion involved in protective custody. You’re going to stick out around here dressed like that. So take off your tie, and if you’re wearing a t-shirt under it, lose the button up shirt too.”

“Fine. I will make myself ‘presentable’. Just give me a moment.” He ducked into the nearby bathroom.

He returned a moment later. “Sufficient?”

Oh boy, was it ever.

He _had_ been wearing a shirt under the button up. A white t-shirt with a v-neck, showing off his collarbone and clinging tightly to his chest.

“Yeah, that’s better.” I managed to get out with only mild ogling. “Just one more thing.” I nodded towards his exposed holster. “Can you do something about that?”

He looked down. “Short of taking it off? No.”

“What if we pick you up a hoodie from the campus store? Two birds, one stone. It’ll hide your…you know, and also make you look more like a student because the hoodies are nowhere near as… _fancy_ as your jacket.”

His gaze turned contemplative. “That’s actually not the worst idea I’ve heard.”

“You sound surprised, _Cullen_. I _am_ a university educated woman.”

He nodded absently. “So, where to first?”

“The campus store, then my first class is Police Psychology. Keep your head down and the Professor most likely won’t even notice you’re not one of her students.”

After a quick detour to the store and then back to Detective Cullen’s car to drop off his monstrosity of a jacket, we headed to my first class.

 ...

“So, what did you think?” I asked as we exited the classroom. Detective Cullen had looked every bit the student with his ‘University of Haven’ sweater. He had even pulled a laptop out of his shoulder bag and started typing along with everyone else. I had no idea what he was actually working on. Probably _actual_ Police work.

“It was interesting to say the least.”

“You followed everything all right?”

He gave me an unimpressed look.

“Right.” He was a Detective with the Police. He sort of lived the psychology of it daily. “Have I mentioned that I’m running on like forty five minutes of sleep?”

“What’s your next class?”

“AESTM with Professor Solas. Which may or may not be harder to sneak into.”

He blinked. “Pardon, it sounded like you said—well I would rather not repeat what it sounded like you said.”

“Ass to M?” That was a common one. Some of Professor Solas’ less mature students actively referred to the class as ‘ass to mouth’.

“Yes. That.” He turned a little red. Cute.

“Ancient Elvhen Science, Technology and Medicine.”

“That doesn't sound particularly exciting. What does that have to do with Forensic Psychology?”

“Technically nothing. I took the intro course last year as an elective and I fell in love with it.”

“You’re taking it by choice.” He sounded incredulous.

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“Because I like history. I want to know where my people come from.” I gestured to my pointed ears. “Also, it’s my guilty pleasure class.”

He sighed. “Right. So, Professor Solas, is that his first name, or his last name?”

I thought for a moment before making a face. “Yes?”

“So you don’t know.”

“That is correct.”

“Superbly unhelpful, Miss Lavellan.”

“Renna.” I corrected cheerfully.

“Superbly unhelpful, Renna.”

“Why does it matter? He’s just a teacher.” Although that kiss he gave me did hint very strongly at him wanting to be more. “Nothing special about him.”

Detective Cullen followed me into the class and took a seat beside me in the back row.

“And you are?” Professor Solas’ gaze narrowed in on Detective Cullen immediately.

“A new transfer.”

“I’m afraid you are not on my list, Mr. A New Transfer.”

“The office told me that everything was all sorted.” Detective Cullen lied smoothly.

“Until you appear on this list,” Professor Solas tapped at the piece of paper in his hand, “you are not welcome in this classroom.”

“Of course, _Professor_.” Detective Cullen gave him a tight smile before he stood and left.

It was about the reaction I had expected from Professor Solas.

 ...

After class Professor Solas stopped me before I could leave the room. “Miss Lavellan, a word?”

“Of course Professor.” I hovered patiently by his desk waiting for the other students to filter out.

He stood and closed the door to the classroom. “Did you know that man?”

Something told me that I shouldn’t go blabbing about my protective custody, even if it was to Professor Solas. Someone might overhear. “Nope. Never seen him before today.”

“Was he harassing you? I can have security escort him off campus.”

The thought was slightly more tempting than it should have been. I still wasn’t too impressed with Detective Cullen suggesting that I take an indefinite leave of absence from class. “That’s not necessary. Thank you though.”

“Let me know if that changes.”

“I will.”

“I trust all has been well with you.”

“Well, for the most part.” I leaned against his desk. “Someone tried to break into my home last night.”

He leaned next to me, fingers just brushing mine and sending a bolt of electricity through me. “Are you all right?”

It took me longer than I would care to admit to find my voice. “Yeah. They didn’t take anything. I just…with the timing it seems like it can’t be a coincidence, you know? It probably has something to do with what I saw.”

“That is entirely possible.” He entwined his fingers with mine and my heart skipped a beat. His thumb traced small circles on the back of my hand. “Did you happen to take anything from the club that night?”

“One of the men dropped a vial of…something…and I grabbed it.”

His thumb stopped circling and he looked up at me as if he was questioning my sanity. “Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“May I see it?”

“I…don’t have it anymore.”

“What did you do with it?”

I looked away, unable to meet his gaze. “I uh…I took it to the Police.”

“You…took it to the Police?” He repeated, as if unsure that he had heard me correctly. “After I expressly asked you not to got to take any unnecessary risks with your safety.”

His voice had taken on a bit of a hard edge as if he was disappointed in me.

I focused on our still entwined fingers. I wouldn’t be able to bear it if the disappointment was as prevalent in his face as it was in his voice. “I’m sorry, Professor. I just…I had to report what I saw. I couldn’t have it weighing on my conscience for the rest of my life.”

“No, you’re right. I apologize for my tone.” He sighed. “I’m just worried for your well-being. I fear these men may make another attempt at you.”

“I’m sure I’ll be all right. I can look after myself, Professor.”

“I have no doubt that you can.”

As much as I didn’t want to leave, Detective Cullen was waiting for me. “I should probably get going…I don’t want to miss out on lunch.”

He nodded and handed me a folded slip of paper. His fingers lingered and his eye contact was smoldering. “My phone number. Should you find yourself needing anything.”

The way he said ‘anything’ combined with the bedroom eyes he was giving me had my mind racing directly to bedroom related activities.

“I’ll talk to you later, Professor.” I said before I could do something that might be considered stupid or indecent in the middle of his classroom.

“Have a pleasant afternoon, Renna.”

I turned back as I reached the door and he was still looking at me with ‘fuck me’ eyes.

Creators, I was doomed. So much for my crush on him being safe and unrequited.

I nodded to Detective Cullen discreetly as I exited the classroom.

He seemed to take the hint and caught up with me halfway to the cafeteria.

“What was that about?” He asked.

“Professor Solas was just making sure that I wasn’t being harassed by the strange human man.”

He raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “You mean me?”

“Were there any other strange human men harassing me in class?”

“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t allowed to stay.”

“True.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I’ve never met you before in my life. He offered to have you escorted off campus. Don’t worry. I told him I was fine.”

“That was very generous of you,” he said dryly.

Before I could make a comment about his sass, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I had a text from Sera.

**[12:13 pm] Ser Bear <3: **wat the pissing shite happened to my bean bags  
**[12:13 pm] Me:** Will you be home when I’m finished class?  
**[12:13 pm] Ser Bear <3: **doesnt answer my question ren  
**[12:14 pm] Me:** It’ll be easier to explain in person.  
**[12:14 pm] Ser Bear <3: **fine. u got a lot of shite to explain. b home round 6

I sighed. She was pissed.

“Is something the matter, Renna?” Detective Cullen asked.

“My roommate just discovered that we had a break in last night.”

He raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You didn’t tell her?”

“She was out last night. I didn’t want to worry her.”

 ...

Professor Solas was the only teacher to notice Detective Cullen’s presence in his classroom. My last two classes passed much the same way as my first class. The professors were either too absorbed in their work or just couldn’t be bothered to notice the existence of an extra body in their classroom.

“Is that all for today?” Detective Cullen asked as I led him to the front doors.

“That’s it, that’s all.”

“Then I would like for you to take me back to your place.”

I saw an opportunity to tease him about his wording. Being the mature adult that I was, I took it. “That’s very forward of you. I like your confidence, but most guys have to buy me dinner first.”

“What are you—Oh! No! No, I meant—Maker’s breath.” He immediately became flustered.

Oh, that could prove easy to exploit. “Relax, Cullen. You need to evaluate the safety of my apartment. I understand.”

He nodded wordlessly, face bright crimson.

We went to his car and he drove us back to my place.

“Elevator’s broken.” I informed him, nodding towards the stairs. “Third floor.”

He made his way up without so much as an exclamation of discomfort.

“What’s it like to be fit?” I pondered out loud, huffing a little as I moved around him to unlock my apartment door.

“What in the name of the Maker is this?” He had stopped to examine some indents in the wall directly across from the apartment door. There were two. One approximately face height on the average human male, and one approximately crotch height on the average human male. "It looks as if something has repeatedly impacted these two spots."

Instead of answering, I gestured behind myself. “Come stand over here.”

He straightened, looking at me inquisitively. “Why—“

“Just do it.”

“All right.”

Once he was safely tucked behind me, I swung the door open. There was a whooshing noise and four bean bags collided with the wall in rapid succession, two hitting the head height indent, and two hitting crotch height indent.

“Maker’s breath!” He exclaimed, staring at the bean bags with slightly widened eyes.

“It’s a rough neighborhood.” I shrugged.

He gave me a sideways glance. “Not _that_ rough, surely.”

“You want to grab those?” I gestured to the bean bags. “I have to reset this. Sera was kind of pissed about the ones she lost last night. Though I imagine not as pissed as the guy who suffered bodily harm at the hands of children's toys.”

“You could do some serious damage with these!” Despite his protests, he did as I asked, crossing the hall and bending to pick up the bean bags.

I took one of the bean bags from him and tossed it into the air, catching it easily. “Nah. It definitely isn't pleasant, but they don't hit hard enough to seriously injure. I mean, I've taken one to the stomach before and it definitely winded me a little. But I was fine."

“Are there anymore surprises I should be on the look out for?”

I didn’t answer, deftly resetting Sera’s bean bags and navigating the small front hallway with ease, kicking off my shoes as I went. “Watch your step.”

“What—“

I spun and put a hand on his chest, just barely catching him before he set off the tripwire that I had pointedly stepped over. I gestured up and slightly behind myself, where a frying pan was strung up, poised and ready to strike. It would also hit about crotch level on the average human male.

Detective Cullen looked up, then back down at my hand, which was still resting on his chest. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and looked away.

I let my hand drop.

“You live in a Home Alone movie.” He grumbled to himself as he carefully stepped over the tripwire.

“You’ve seen Home Alone?” I was surprised that he even knew what it was.

“I was young once.”

“How old _are_ you?”

“Does it really matter?”

I shrugged. “Not particularly, no. I’m just curious.”

He sighed. “I'm thirty-one.”

That made him seven years older than me, which made him the same age as—well, that part wasn’t important. It didn’t matter who he was the same age as. I wasn’t going down that road with him. “Anyway, I know where all the traps are, so it’s easy enough to avoid them.”

“How many are there exactly?”

“Over a dozen. Not counting the electric current on the windows. Sera is brilliant with that sort of thing.”

He spared me an unimpressed look. “The _supremely illegal_ sort of thing?”

“You’re here to assess the safety of my residence, not arrest my roommate.” I told him cheerfully.

“Do you have any sort of _real_ anti-theft precautions in place? Cameras? Bars on the windows? An alarm system?”

“Do you have any idea how much that sort of shit costs? Our security system is cheap DIY, Detective. It seems to work well enough as a deterrent.”

“I see.” He pulled a notepad and pen from his pocket, making a quick note.

“Shall we?” I gestured around the rest of the apartment.

“It will be easier for me to conduct my examination alone.”

“All right, be my guest.” I plopped down on the couch and grabbed a textbook from my bag.

He paused and looked around uneasily as if he expected a druffalo to fall from the ceiling and crush him.

“I’ll warn you if you get to close to the cobra pit.”

He stopped mid step, eyes comically wide. “You _are_ joking, right?”

“Yes, Detective. A pit full of snakes would never get along with the rabid mongooses we have running wild.”

He crossed his arms. “You’re teasing me.”

“You are _very_ easy to tease, Detective.” I might have thrown in a little more ‘flirt’ than was strictly necessary, which, in the grand scheme of things, was probably a bad idea.

Luckily, he ignored me in favor of beginning his thorough examination of my living quarters.

He scribbled some notes into his Detective Notepad ™.

I called out a warning whenever he got close to setting something off.

After about fifteen minutes of him poking and prodding around the apartment, I peered over the top of my textbook. “How’s it going?”

“I believe I’m finished with my assessment.”

“You want to sit down and discuss your findings?” I patted the spot next to me on the couch.

He eyed the couch warily.

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t worry, it’s not going to launch you across the room or anything. It’s like the one spot in the entire apartment that isn’t some sort of booby-trapped.”

“I would prefer to stand.”

“Sit, Detective.”

“Fine.” He sat with a sigh. “And just call me by my name. What would your roommate think if she walked in on you calling me ‘Detective’?”

“Honestly, knowing Sera, her first thought would probably be that it was some sort of kinky sex thing.”

He immediately turned red, getting all flustered as he inched as far away from me as he could get on the small sofa. “Do you…uh…do you often have gentlemen over for that?”

It was honestly adorable. I would have told him so if I wasn’t fairly certain that it would make him spontaneously combust. I still couldn’t resist a little more teasing. I leaned forward a little, exposing what little cleavage I possessed. “Oh, all the time. I’m a real hit with the ‘gentlemen’.”

“Oh…er, that’s…Maker. Is it hot in here?” He tugged at the collar of his shirt, looking pointedly away from my cleavage.

“No, you’re just hot.” I bit my lip to hold back the grin that threatened to split across my face. He really had walked into that one.

He spluttered a little bit, eyes traveling down to where my teeth gripped my lip, then traveling back up to look into mine.

“Relax.” I leaned back. “I’m just messing with you. Between studying and working to afford my half of the rent on this palace, I don’t have a love life—or even social life really—to speak of.”

“Maker’s breath. Can we talk about something else? _Anything_ else?”

“Of course. We can talk about your assessment? Does this place pass your inspection?”

He frowned. “Honestly, no.”

It was my turn to frown. “Well, I don’t have anywhere else I can stay.”

“I’ll arrange for a safe house.”

“What about Sera?”

“The less she knows about the situation, the safer things will be for her. Does she have somewhere that she could stay?”

“She won’t like being kicked out of her home, no matter how briefly.”

“I also feel that it would be in your best interest if you were to take a leave of absence from your place of employment as well.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“Really?”

“You sound surprised.”

“That was far easier than I expected it to be.”

I shrugged. “I was thinking of taking a ‘leave of absence’ for my midterms anyway.”

I heard the front door open followed by the ‘woosh’ of the bean bags.

Sera was home.

I could tell that she was pissed before she even came into view.

“Hey, Sera.” I gave her a weak wave.

Sera stood in the hallway, eyes narrowed as she took in the scene.

“Who’s this then?” She asked with a nod at Detective Cullen.

“Cullen.”

“And how do ya know ‘Cullen’?”

“I met him at school.” I pointed helpfully to the sweater he was still wearing. “He’s a friend.”

“’A friend’. Hmm. Can I talk to ya, Ren?” Her eyes shifted to Detective Cullen distrustfully. “Alone?”

I crossed my arms. “Don’t be rude, Sera.”

“Pfft. Don’t bring strange men home without warnin’ me first.”

“I have to grab something from my car anyway.” Detective Cullen interjected, standing hurriedly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	5. Roommates

Detective Cullen made a cowardly retreat, leaving me alone to deal with my irate roommate.

Sera watched him leave, brows drawn down and her mouth pressed into a thin line. She turned the sour look on me as soon as his footfalls left our hearing range. “Wot in the bloody name of Andraste’s flaming tits is going on, Ren?”

“Well…” I started, not sure exactly where to begin.

“Explain. Now.” She tapped her foot impatiently and crossed her arms. “Somethin’s goin’ on with ya. Cully Wully is _clearly_ some sorta law enforcement. There’s officers hangin’ ‘round our place. Have been since at least noon. Then there was that black shite on yer shoes and that vial of ‘probably drugs’ in your pocket from the club. Wot the bloody hell’s goin’ on?”

She was my best friend. I owed her as much truth as I could reasonably give her. I let out a long sigh. “I can’t get into the specifics, because it’s an ongoing _thing_. But I saw something when we went out to the Divine Conclave. Something that I shouldn’t have. Something bad. And now there are people after me.”

Her gaze softened a fraction. “Ya know I won’t let anyone hurt ya, yeah?”

“I know that, Sera. But the people who are after me are bad people. Very bad people. And I want you to be safe too. Which is why I’m going to ask if it’s possible for you to stay at Dagna’s for a bit.”

Her frown returned full force. “Why?”

“It isn’t safe here. Not right now. I’m pretty sure the guys that are after me are the ones that tried to break in last night.”

She re-crossed her arms. “And wot about you?”

“I’m going to a Police safe house. Tonight.”

“With Cullen?”

“I haven’t exactly had a chance to dig too deep into the specifics yet. I would assume he would be there too, since he’s overseeing my protective custody." I paused. "Maybe don’t mention in front of him that I’ve blabbed about the whole ‘safe house’ thing. Or the whole ‘him being a Police officer’ thing. Or the whole ‘bad people are after me’ thing. I would make a terrible secret agent. Or a really good one.” My phone buzzed.

**[6:13 pm] Cullen:** Is it safe to come back up?

"Cullen?" Sera asked indicating my phone, unimpressed all over again. Or maybe unimpressed still.

"Yeah. He's wondering if it's safe to come back up." I bit my lip and met her gaze. "Are we good?"

"Yeah. We're good, Ren. Just, no more surprises, yeah?"

I snorted a laugh. "I can't make any promises on that front, since that's sort of how surprises work."

"Fine," she huffed. "I s'pose that's fair."

"Do you have anything else you want to say before I give him the okay to come back?"

She thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Nope."

**[6:14 pm] Me:** Yeah. It's safe.

I sent off my response. "Done. He should be on his way back up. As far as he's concerned, I told you some bullshit about our place being fumigated and how it won't be safe for us to be here for awhile."

"And where are _you_  supposedly staying?"

"A friend's place."

“Ya don’t have any other friends.”

I glared at her. “Why do people keep saying that?”

“Uh, ‘cause it’s true?” She shrugged.

“You and Varric are both assholes.” I muttered.

“But ya luv us.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now play nice.”

“Fine,” she said with an exaggerated sigh.

I tapped my ear, indicating that I could hear Detective Cullen approaching.

She rolled her eyes. “How long they gonna be fumigatin' for exactly?"

"They can't say for sure. It's an old building. Lots of potential issues could crop up. Could be days. Could be weeks."

“Right, right. Timin’ works out good, yeah? Widdle just invited me on a weekend getaway that could turn into a weeklong thing. I can crash at her place till it's all sorted. And where are you planning' on stayin'?”

"Cullen's. In his guest room." I wasn't exactly sure why I said it. I supposed part of it was that even if I hadn't spilled my guts to Sera, I would have wanted her to know who I was actually staying with.

She raised her eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

“I’ve returned.” Detective Cullen poked his head around the hallway corner into the living room. I knew he had been listening at the door for a moment before making his presence known.

I sighed. “I guess it’s time to start packing then.”

Sera hovered at her bedroom door. “Don’t pack too loud, yeah? Widdle is coming over for some Netflix and chill before we hafta clear out.”

Detective Cullen looked over at me in confusion and mouthed ‘Widdle?’

“Sera’s girlfriend. Dagna.” I replied.

The confusion didn't leave his face. “And Netflix and chill means?”

“Hot lesbian action in my bedroom.” Sera interjected helpfully.

“Oh.” Cullen’s face turned red and it looked like he may have been regretting inadvertently engaging her in conversation. Adorable.

Sera turned to me. “How old is this guy? Seventy?”

“Not a day over sixty-nine.”

She snorted like the mature adult she was. “Ya gotta admit, ya have a thing for older men.”

I glared at her. That was not what I meant when I asked her to feign ignorance about Detective Cullen’s identity. And it definitely wasn’t a good time to reference my poor life choices with regards to older men.

“This,” I gestured emphatically between Detective Cullen and I, “isn’t a thing.”

“If ya say so. I’ll be outta here by ten tonight. If that's good.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Sera.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let me know before ya take off, yeah?”

“I will.”

She disappeared into her room, more or less ignoring Detective Cullen.

I made my way to my own room with the intent of packing all of my crap into one easy to grab bag.

“Older men?” He stopped at my bedroom door as if some sort of magical force field was preventing him from entering.

“That would be the bit you pick up on, wouldn’t it?” I shifted uncomfortably as I dug through my closet for my suitcase. I debated how much I _actually_ wanted to tell him, settling on a half-truth. “She may or may not have been referring to a crush that I may or not possibly have on Professor Solas. Maybe.”

“Are you serious? _Him_?”

I turned to face him. “You sound surprised.”

“That’s because I am.”

I crossed my arms. “Why? Is there something wrong with valuing intelligence and experience?”

“Well, no—“

“Plus, have you seen his butt?”

“No, I have not.” He said with a hint of indignation at the suggestion.

“Take a look if you’re ever allowed within twenty feet of the classroom again. I dare you.”

“Maker, no.”

“You’re no fun.”

He crossed his arms. “I am strangely all right with that in this particular scenario.”

I rolled my eyes. “How long should I be preparing to stay for?”

His posture relaxed a little and his eyes softened. “I know you won’t want to hear it, but the foreseeable future.”

I sighed. “Fantastic.”

I started organizing my things into piles: ‘clothes’, ‘books’, ‘have to take with me’, and ‘could probably live without if some crazed thugs torched the apartment while I was gone’.

He watched me in silence for a moment. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving actually.”

“I can run out and get some pizza or something if you’d like,” he offered.

“Pizza would be fantastic.”

He started to move out of my doorway, then paused. “Would your roommate—“

“Love you forever if you offered her free food? Probably.” I interrupted.

He frowned. “I was going to ask if she would like some.”

“I stand by my statement.”

“Any preference for toppings?”

“Half cheese, half vegetarian with pineapple and pepperoni.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Did I hear that right?”

“You sure did. There’s a place a block north. Tell them it’s for Sera and they won’t give you any shit.”

“All right. I’ll return shortly. I have officers waiting down stairs in the event that you need anything while I’m gone.”

I smiled up at him from my bedroom floor. It was tired, but it was genuine. “Before you go, I just wanted to say…I know babysitting me isn’t exactly a fun time…so thanks, Cullen. For everything.”

“You’re…uh, you’re welcome.” His face took on a nearly imperceptible red hue as he turned and left.

I tried to decipher the cause of his blush. I hadn’t said anything remotely sexual. Maybe he was just one of those guys who was afraid of feelings in general. Or maybe I had been imagining it.

I finished packing before Detective Cullen returned with the pizza.

It was a good thing all of my things fit in my oversized suitcase.

Or maybe that was a sad thing.

Sera warmed up to him immediately once she realized he had returned with food.

...

“I’ll take this down to the car.” Detective Cullen gestured to my suitcase. He took it out into the hallway, stopping a few paces down the hall to listen. I didn’t mind. It was part of his job.

“I love you, Ser Bear. Be safe.” I tapped my ear before dropping my voice to a whisper. “I’ll text you when I get to wherever the hell it is I’m going. I won’t be able to tell you exactly where I am though.”

“I know. Protocol bullshite.” Her volume matched my own, humoring me even though she thought I was being stupid.

“As soon as all of this over I owe you dinner.”

“Ya bet yer arse ya do.” She pulled me into a tight hug, raising her voice for Detective Cullen’s benefit. “Love ya too, Ren Ren. Now, go on. Have fun shacking up with that hunk o’ man meat.”

I heard the sound of my suitcase being dropped, followed by a curse.

Sera quirked her head to the side innocently. “Think he heard me?”

I waited for his footsteps to actually fade away.

I swatted her arm. “You know he did. Tell Dagna I’m sorry I missed her. And I’m sorry for putting both of you out like this.”

“She won’t mind. Honest.”

“Text me if you need anything, okay? If something falls through and Dagna can’t put you up, let me know. I’ll get something sorted for you.” I felt the anxiety begin to swirl in my chest. She was my best friend in the entire world. What if something happened to her while I was in hiding?

“Stop motherin’ me woman. Yer gonna miss yer ride.”

“You know that he can’t leave without me, it would sort of defeat the purpose of protective custody. I love you.” I pulled her into another hug, this time burying my face in her shoulder. I felt a few tears escape my eyes, the events of the last few days finally starting to catch up with me. Who knew how long it would be until I saw her again?

I could practically hear her rolling her eyes as she patted me on the back. “Love ya too, ya loon.”

I grabbed my backpack and dashed out into the hallway and down the stairs, hastily wiping at my eyes as I went.

Detective Cullen was waiting in his car.

I opened the passenger door and slid in, sticking my backpack between my knees.

“Are you ready, Renna?” He met my eyes, then quickly looked away, telling me that I hadn’t wiped away my tears as well as I had hoped.

“As I’ll ever be, Detective.”

...

We drove through a series of interconnected underground parkades.

Detective Cullen had punched in a code on a keypad, and then away we went.

It was sort of exciting. 

And it made me feel like I was the daring heroine in some sort of spy movie.

After about five minutes of parkade hopping, he pulled into a vacant spot.

He grabbed my suitcase and a duffle bag I didn’t recognize out of the trunk, and I followed him to a bank of elevators.

Once inside the elevator he pushed the button for the fourth floor. Apparently the building had a total of six floors if the buttons were anything to go by.

“Are you all right?” He asked after a few floors of semi-uncomfortable silence.

“Hmm? Oh…yeah.” I gave him another tired smile. “Just musing over exactly how my life got this fucked up.”

“It could be worse.”

“It could be a fuckton better too.”

He mulled that over for a moment before slightly nodding his head in agreement. “I suppose you’re right.” He was quiet for a moment, contemplative. "Why did you tell your roommate that you would be staying with me?"

"Were you eavesdropping, Detective?"

"Of course not. I merely caught the end of your conversation as I was returning to your apartment."

"Sure, sure." I said placatingly. "I told her because it's the truth. I'm lying to her about everything else. She deserves to know who I'm going to be living with for however long this shit takes to blow over."

"I suppose that's fair."

The elevator dinged and we stepped out into the hall. He led me down the hallway in silence. It was hard to get a feel for exactly how nice of a building it was. The walls were a bland white. The floors were covered with dark carpet. The doors we passed were painted dark and had golden numbers nailed to them. It looked more well-kept than my apartment building at least.

“402. This is us.” He paused outside the door, fiddling with the keys.

The door opened into a small entryway with a closet on one side, and the kitchen on the other side. The kitchen was separated from the entryway by a peninsula style countertop. There was a set of hooks right beside the door, which is where I hung my jacket. Directly through the entry and past the kitchen was the living room.

To the left of the living room was a bathroom/laundry room combination, and to the right of the living room were the bedrooms.

There was an actual table in the kitchen too. I hadn’t eaten dinner at a table since before Sera and I had moved to our cramped little apartment.

I stepped into the living room and spun around. Trying to get a good look at everything all at once.

The kitchen cupboards were dark wood with brushed steel fittings. The appliances all looked new. The living room furniture was black leather and oversized. There was a large TV mounted on the wall.

There was even a small balcony. If the weather were warmer, I would have gone out and stood on it, even thought it probably would have been against the protocol for protective custody.

“It’s not much, but at least there are two bedrooms.” Detective Cullen said.

“Not much? You’re kidding, right?” I spun around again, gesturing to the entirety of the apartment. “You do realize that this is like twice the size of my place, right?”

He looked around again. “I suppose it is.”

“You must live in a mansion for something this nice to be comparatively ‘not much’.”

He snorted. “Nothing of the sort.”

“This is much nicer than I expected.”

“You can take the master bedroom if you’d like,” he offered. “It has an ensuite bathroom. It’ll allow you more privacy.”

“Probably for the best since I like to air dry in the nude after a shower.” I teased without thinking.

“Maker’s breath.” He muttered, face turning immediately scarlet.

“Sorry, you just make it so easy, Cullen.” My smile slipped a little as I realized something. Just because it was easy, didn’t mean it was wise. Even without my shitty history with men, Detective Cullen was my new roommate for the foreseeable future. I had to live with him. I shouldn’t have been saying things like that just because I thought his reactions were amusing/adorable. “If I’m making you uncomfortable with the teasing and the flirting, just tell me and I’ll stop.”

“No, it’s just—”

I was immediately struck by a horrifying thought. “Oh, shit. You have a girlfriend, don’t you? Of course you do. I’m so sorry, it was harmless I swear. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“No—“

“Wife?”

“No—“

I hazarded another guess. “A boyfriend then?”

“Maker, no.” He didn’t meet my eyes, his cheeks impossibly red. “There isn’t anyone in my life. This is a little…embarrassing, but it has been awhile since someone has flirted with me this…aggressively. That’s all.”

It was cute that he thought _that_ was aggressive flirting. I was still slightly mortified about the entire exchange. “Oh. I’m going to go unpack now and pretend that I never opened my stupid mouth. Feel free to pretend along with me.”

I disappeared into my room with my suitcase, listening to music through my headphones as I unpacked.

The bedroom was a fair bit bigger than my bedroom at home.

There was a queen-sized bed, a dresser, a nightstand and a desk with a chair. And there was actually room to move around, unlike my own room, which had been filled to capacity by my meager belongings.

The closet was modestly sized in terms of what I assumed the average closet to be, but easily triple the size of my closet at home.

The bathroom was also a pretty decent size. I could comfortably lie down in the middle of the floor without touching any of the bathroom fixtures.

There was a deep soaker tub/shower combination. I was looking forward to using the tub portion the most. My tub at home barely held enough water to keep my belly button covered. This tub looked like I would be able to be submerged up to my shoulders.

After I finished unpacking, I decided to text Varric. It would make things easier for him if I let him know immediately that I wouldn’t be coming in for the foreseeable future.

**[7:39 pm] Me:** Dear Asshole Boss:  
**[7:39 pm] Me:** I quit.  
**[7:40 pm] Varric:** That’s fine. You’re shit at your job anyway.  
**[7:40 pm] Me:** Kay. Rude.  
**[7:42 pm] Varric:** I’m kidding, I’m kidding. You’re the best late night/early morning cashier a guy could ask for.  
**[7:43 pm] Me:** Ha. Dial it back, Varric. I might start to think you actually enjoy my company or something.  
**[7:43 pm] Me:** I need sort of an indefinite leave of absence.  
**[7:43 pm] Varric:** Everything good, Poppy?  
**[7:44 pm] Me:** Oh. You know me. In trouble with the law. Again. Haha.

It was a good thing that everything sounded sarcastic when I texted it.

**[7:46 pm] Varric:** Job’s here for you when you want it, kid.  
**[7:46 pm] Me:** Thanks, Varric. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve got my shit all sorted.  
**[7:47 pm] Varric:** No problem, Poppy. You need anything, anything at all, don’t hesitate to call.

Next on my text list was Sera.

**[7:58 pm] Me:** Holed up in the temporary digs. It’s snazzy. I think you would like it.  
**[7:58 pm] Ser Bear <3: **ur safe, ya?  
**[7:59 pm] Me:** Yes, I’m good. How are things at Dagna’s?  
**[7:59 pm] Ser Bear <3: **good. how long til we can go home  
**[7:59 pm] Me:** I’m not sure, Sera. Sorry about all of this.  
**[8:00 pm] Ser Bear <3: **s’fine **.** i knew u wer trouble ;P  
**[8:00 pm] Me:** Yes. I’m the troublemaker. I have class in the morning, but I’ll talk to you later, okay? Night! Love you!  
**[8:01 pm] Ser Bear <3: **luv u 2.

The only issue I had with my temporary ‘new home’ was that the bed was bare.

I had brought my pillow and blanket from home.

Should I have brought my own sheets?

Maybe there was a linen closet somewhere.

I pulled off my headphones and heard Cullen moving around in the kitchen.

He would probably know.

I opened my door and stepped out into the living room.

“Hey, Cullen, do you know—Oh!” I squeaked.

He was just standing there in the middle of the kitchen, drinking a glass of water.

In a towel.

Just a towel.

His hair was damp.

Beads of water rolled down his chest and abs, disappearing against the towel wrapped around his waist.

He had just stepped out of the shower.

Oh, Creators.

My eyes snapped back up to his face.

He looked like a halla caught in the headlights, which was incidentally precisely how I felt.

I swallowed hard, spinning abruptly to face the wall. “Sorry, I—“

The sound of his bedroom door closing alerted me to his absence.

I didn’t need sheets on my bed.

I didn’t need to leave my room again until morning.

I didn’t need to leave my room again _ever_.

I started to open the door to my room, making concrete plans to never leave again, when the door to Cullen’s room swung open.

Cullen appeared dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt. “I apologize. I thought that you had gone to sleep.”

I felt my face heat. “Oh, um. It’s all right. I was just wondering if you knew anything about the whole linen situation? I was about to settle in for the night when I realized that my bed doesn’t have any sheets.”

“Have you tried the linen closet?”

“I was going to ask you if there was one, actually.”

He pointed to the door beside the bathroom.

I scurried across the apartment, opening the door. Sure enough there were a few sets of neatly folded sheets. I grabbed one and held it up to briefly examine it before tightly clutching it to my chest, and scurrying back to my bedroom door. “Thanks. Uh…good night.”

I closed the door and made my bed in mortified silence.

I had to tell Sera.

**[8:42 pm] Me:** So…I just saw Cullen pretty much naked.  
**[8:43 pm] Ser Bear <3: **perv <3  
**[8:43 pm] Ser Bear <3: **that didn’t take long  
**[8:43 pm] Ser Bear <3: **wat happened to sleepin  
**[8:43 pm] Ser Bear <3: **perv <3  
**[8:44 pm] Me:** I was looking for sheets.  
**[8:44 pm] Me:** And I guess I caught him just coming out of the shower.  
**[8:44 pm] Me:** He definitely works out.  
**[8:45 pm] Ser Bear <3: **gross. im out. im not objectifying men with u.

I was wide-awake.

Every time I closed my eyes visions of Cullen’s naked chest danced behind my eyes.

Damp skin.

Sculpted muscles.

A trail of dark hair leading from his navel to—

I needed a distraction.

I needed to be thinking of something else.

Anything else, really.

Then I remembered the folded up piece of paper that Professor Solas had given me with his phone number on it. I dug around in my backpack until I found it.

I entered it into my phone and put three hearts as his contact name.

I didn’t want someone—Cullen—to accidentally see me texting—sexting—Professor Solas’ actual name.

I was going to text him a ‘hey you up?’ message, but I got a better idea instead.

I got up off the bed and went into the bathroom.

There was a full-length mirror in there.

I had sent nudes before.

I knew to keep it tasteful.

I covered my breasts with one arm and jutted my hip out, showing off the lacy black thong I was wearing.

I kept my face out of the picture.

**[10:13 pm] Me:** Hey, Professor, does this get me an ‘A’?  
**[10:13 pm] Me:** [IMAGE ATTACHED]

I bit my lip.

Maybe I was being too forward.

I waited.

And waited.

Maybe he didn’t want to play along.

I grabbed one of my textbooks with a sigh.

Studying was something that I could do anywhere.

Unfortunately, it never actually put me to sleep.

**[11:15 pm] <3 <3 <3: **I am busy at the moment. See me after class tomorrow.  
**[11:15 pm] <3 <3 <3: **We can discuss your grades then.

Well.

That had done nothing to alleviate my level of wakefulness.

I was left pondering if him wanting to see me after class a good thing or if it was a sign that things were over between us before they ever really had the chance to begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	6. Inappropriate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this a little later than I intended, but I've been working on trying to earn that explicit rating, and it was a little...difficult, haha.

When I finally did get to sleep, I dreamed of golden hair and honey colored eyes looking up at me from between my thighs, and a smirk dancing across scarred lips.

I forced myself awake.

Holy shit.

Fuck.

See a guy shirtless once and I dream about him licking my bits.

I needed to get laid.

But _that_ came with it’s own set of complications.

Luckily, I had the next best thing at my fingertips.

Literally.

I allowed my mind to drift back toward the dream I had been having. It was just a little fantasy. It wasn’t something that would ever _actually_ happen. There was no harm in fantasizing.

**_Teeth teasing at my neck._ **

I slid my fingers into my already damp panties.

**_Scarred lips traveling down my body._ **

I teased my fingers along my entrance, gliding easily through the slickness.

**_Calloused fingertips ghosting over my skin._ **

I settled my fingers against my clit, swirling them around and around.

**_A hard pinch against my nipple._ **

I built up to a punishing rhythm, breath coming in quick pants.

**_A gentle kiss on each thigh._ **

I let my fingers slide deeper, pressing into my core, my thumb taking over the pressure on my clit.

**_Tongue sliding impatiently inside eager to—_ **

I clenched around my fingers, a little moan escaping my lips as I came.

Hopefully Cullen was still asleep.

As the post-orgasmic haze faded and I fully woke up, I realized that maybe there might have been some harm in fantasizing.

I wasn’t sure I could look him in the eye after that.

Cullen wasn’t exactly mine to fantasize about. And it also sort of felt like I was cheating on Professor Solas.

Guilt weighed on my chest, dragging me back down to earth.

I couldn’t exactly take back the orgasm. Or the fantasy. It was done. And just because I found Cullen attractive didn’t mean that I liked Professor Solas any less.

I gnawed nervously on the inside of my cheek, glancing at the clock. I had class in forty-five minutes. That wasn’t enough time to work through my internal baggage, so I set it aside to unpack at a later date.

I decided to take a shower and put the morning’s activities out of my mind.

After my shower I got dressed.

Since I would only be outside for a maximum of like two minutes—the time it took to walk from the parking lot to the building—I figured wearing a skirt would be fine. Plus, my legs were my best asset, my breasts and curves being practically non-existent. I told myself that I wasn’t dressing up for my meeting with Professor Solas. But I was totally dressing up for my meeting with Professor Solas. He had given me no indication whatsoever about what he wanted actually wanted to discuss, so I wanted to make sure I went in there armed the best way I knew how to be.

I paired my black mini-skirt with a slouchy black off-the-shoulder sweater and thigh-high black socks.

When I exited my bedroom, Cullen was sitting at the kitchen table staring at the wall. His face was a very interesting shade of crimson.

“Good morning.” I greeted cheerfully, forcing myself not to think about his tongue.

“Good morning. The walls here are very thin. I heard some…” He cleared his throat and refused to meet my eyes. In fact he was very pointedly looking anywhere but at me. “…noises coming from your room.”

Oh.

Well, fuck.

Note to self: masturbate in the shower from now on.

Or keep it in my pants until my living situation was back to normal.

Who knew how long that would take?

I would probably be masturbating in the shower from now on.

At least I hadn’t done something embarrassing.

Like moan his name.

Why would he even bring it up at all?

It was incredibly obvious that the topic made him ridiculously embarrassed.

Unless he just wanted to let me know so that he wouldn’t have to endure a repeat performance.

I _had_ told him to tell me if I was making him uncomfortable after all.

I kept my face carefully blank. _Play it cool. Play it cool. He doesn’t know that you were fantasizing about him._ “I tend to talk in my sleep. Is that what you heard?”

“Yes. That must have been it.” His eyes finally settled on me, then he quickly looked away, eyes falling to the folder he had spread open on the table.

There was an awkward tension in the air as I crossed the kitchen in search of breakfast.

The fridge was bare.

I opened the cupboard by the fridge. Also empty.

One by one, I opened all of the cupboards. Each was empty with the exception of a small collection of mismatched bowls and plates, and an assortment of pots and pans.

I would have to stop for something on the way to class.

“You okay if we leave now?” I asked. “I want to grab some breakfast.”

“Andraste preserve me.” He exclaimed quietly, probably hoping that I wouldn’t hear him.

I turned back and looked at him over my shoulder, wondering what had set him off this time.

He was back to staring at the wall.

Oh. Right.

I was bent over in the cupboard with my ass in the air wearing thigh-high socks and a mini-skirt.

Apparently I was a walking ad for sexual harassment.

I straightened and grabbed my scarf and jacket off the hook by the door. “Well?”

“Sorry? What?” He turned to look at me, appearing slightly relieved that I no longer had my ass up in the air.

“Breakfast.” I nodded to the door.

“Yes. Sorry.” He stood somewhat awkwardly, ‘discreetly’ covering himself with the manila folder he had been working out of.

Woops.

I tried not to be obvious about the fact that I was pointedly not looking down.

I let him leave the apartment first. Something told me that walking behind me and my swaying hips wouldn’t help his situation any.

I would definitely have to tone down the sex appeal. Starting tomorrow.

…

My stomach fluttered nervously as I entered Professor Solas’ class.

I was worried that that maybe he hadn’t appreciated the picture after all.

He didn’t even spare me a look.

As class wore on I realized something.

I had forgotten to warn Cullen that I would be a little late getting out of class.

Shit.

I texted him at the first opportunity I had.

Unfortunately that wasn’t until six minutes to the end of class.

I would have liked to give him more warning than that, but it had completely slipped my mind. Professor Solas didn’t allow phones to be used in his class, so I had to wait for him to leave.

 **[11:39 am] Me:** Hey, I’m going to be a little late getting out of class. Professor Solas wants to discuss my last test.  
**[11:39 am] Cullen:** All right.  
**[11:39 am] Cullen:** I’ll be waiting outside your classroom.  
**[11:40 am] Me:** Can you maybe wait somewhere else?  
**[11:41 am] Cullen:** What part of ‘protective custody’ is unclear to you?  
**[11:41 am] Cullen:** It’s technically against protocol for you to even be out of my sight at all.  
**[11:42 am] Me:** Just wait in the cafeteria. People are going to get the wrong idea about us if you’re always hovering around waiting for me.  
**[11:43 am] Me:** Please?  
**[11:44 am] Cullen:** Fine.

I waited at my desk, putting my things away as slowly as I could manage.

Finally, the last student left the room and we were alone.

“So, Professor, you wanted to see me?”

He had one hell of a poker face. “Step into my office please.”

I did as he asked, fidgeting with my backpack. “I apologize if—“

He cut me off with a kiss, pushing me up against the wall as he reached behind me to close the door.

Oh.

_Oh._

So he had appreciated the picture after all.

I dropped my backpack and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, pulling him in tighter.

It had been seven long years since I had been with someone. Some small part of me said that this was a bad idea. I didn’t listen to that little voice of reason; mind clouded with the need I felt to have the man standing before me inside of me.

It was about damn time to end my self-imposed vow of celibacy.

When his fingers slid into my panties I nearly forgot my own name, nevermind the fact that Cullen was waiting for me in the cafeteria.

With that simple touch, he erased all thoughts of my earlier fantasy.

I was being fingered by Professor Solas.

It was probably a bad idea to let this continue, but I couldn’t muster up the energy to care. I was too preoccupied with the way that his fingers felt inside me.

I let my eyes drift shut as his fingers worked me skillfully, playing my sensitive nerve endings like a violin.

He pressed me harder into the wall, fingers inside of me and tongue at my lips, working in earth shattering tandem to open my body to his demands.

I was lost. Adrift in a sea of desire.

Then, his fingers were gone and his mouth was leaving mine.

I had to stop myself from whining as I opened my eyes to glare up at him.

The corner of his lip quirked up in amusement as he produced a condom from his back pocket. He raised a questioning eyebrow.

Barely a word had passed between us since I had entered his office. But we didn’t need words. I was there, and he was there, and if the erection pressing against my stomach was anything to go by, we both obviously wanted it.

I bit my lip, trying not to nod too enthusiastically.

He quickly tugged his sweater over his head, revealing his naked chest.

My fingers danced over his collarbones and down, lingering over his heart. He had a tattoo there, some sort of animal jawbone. While I was busy admiring the intricate detail of the ink, he put on the condom.

He had a tattoo. He didn’t seem like the type to—

He grabbed my wrists and directed my arms roughly to his shoulders, then his hands found their way under my ass and he lifted me off the ground, encouraging my legs around his hips as he pinned me to the wall.

A skirt had been a very good choice that morning after all. I tugged the fabric up impatiently, then I could feel every inch of him through the thin lace of my panties.

He shifted his grasp, taking my weight with one hand while he used the other to line up our bodies and push my panties to the side.

I held my breath as he teased his length along my entrance, then without any warning, he pushed all the way inside, drawing a moan from my lips that he muffled halfway through with his hand against my mouth. I could taste myself on his skin. I licked his palm.

With a groan, he began to work his hips, then I was being fucked by Professor Solas.

I rolled my hips to meet him, and he dipped his fingers between our joined bodies.

His eyes closed as he slammed into me.

He was being rough.

I needed rough.

It was an unfortunate by-product of my last relationship.

Tender just wouldn’t cut it.

I needed passion, domination.

I needed to shut those thoughts down immediately before they ruined the careful composure that I had spent years cultivating.

His teeth came down on my neck with bruising force, and I was lost to the heady mix of pain and carnal bliss.

His fingers pressed harder against my clit, his grip on my ass near bruising, his teeth on my neck far past that point.

Pleasure erupted, and I saw stars. I let out another moan, this time muffling it myself against his shoulder, since his hands were otherwise occupied. I was dimly aware of him giving a few more thrusts before he stilled, letting out a growl into the side of my neck as I continued to spasm around him.

Whoa.

That was—

Just. Whoa.

I wasn’t feeling particularly coherent.

For a few moments, our heavy breath was the only sound in the silence of his office. I clung to him, needing the physical closeness to feel connected to him, to reassure myself that this hadn’t been a mistake.

He pulled out, resting his forehead on my shoulder as he gently disentangled himself from the vice like grip of my limbs. Apparently he wasn’t a cuddler.

I let my feet hit the ground, testing their ability to support my weight.

He pressed a soft kiss to the side of my neck.

“Did you need anything else, Professor?” The words sounded stupid to me as they left my mouth.

Who said that after sex?

I did apparently.

He surveyed me with humor dancing behind his eyes, a small smile playing across his lips. “No, that will be all.”

I bit my lip. “Um, okay.”

“Until later, Miss Lavellan.” His smile turned borderline predatory as he took a step back from me.

Whoa.

I felt warmth once again rising from my core as I tucked my hair behind my ear almost shyly. “See you Monday, Professor.”

I made a brief detour to the bathroom on my way to the cafeteria.

I needed to make sure that I didn’t look like someone who had just fucked her teacher.

Spoiler alert.

I did look like someone who had just fucked her teacher.

My cheeks were flushed.

My hair was mussed.

A big ugly bruise was forming on the side of my neck.

My skirt was wrinkled.

I was a mess.

I quickly brushed my fingers through my hair, and when that did absolutely nothing to help the appearance, I threw it up into a bun.

Unfortunately, that left my neck exposed. I didn’t have any make-up with me to cover the hickey, so I hoped that my scarf wouldn’t look too conspicuous.

I looked slightly less ‘thoroughly fucked’, and that would have to do given my limited resources.

When I arrived in the cafeteria, Cullen was sitting at a table, watching the doors like a hawk. I stopped in front of him, not quite ready to sit.

“There you are.” He stood with a relieved look. “I was starting to get worried.”

I held back an eye roll. “I was only gone like ten minutes.”

“Adding an additional ten minutes to the eighty you were already out of my sight.” His tone and gaze were filled with disapproval. “What took so long?”

I shrugged, going for nonchalance. “We were just discussing my last test.”

“And how did you make out?”

Oh, that word choice. I did my very best to be a mature adult and not break out into a stupid grin. I half succeeded. “Extremely well.”

Luckily, he seemed to take my grin as excitement over my test. “If you’re doing so well, then why did he need to see you?”

I shrugged. “To tell me to keep up the good work. I’m going to grab some food. I’m starving. Want anything?”

“No, thank you.”

I made my way through the line, grabbing a sandwich, a salad, and a jello cup topped with whipped cream.

“We should probably work on the food situation at the apartment.” I said as I sat down across from Cullen.

“What do you mean?”

“I kind of like having food available to me where I’m living.” I said around a mouth full of sandwich.

“We really shouldn’t spend an abundance of time out in public.”

I gave him a pointed look as I gestured vaguely around the cafeteria.

“The only reason we are out in public now is that you insisted.”

“I’m insisting now too.” I dipped my finger into the dollop of whipped cream sitting on top of my jello and sucked it off absently.

He swallowed hard, eyes closing for a fraction of a second in a pained expression. “Do you even realize that you’re doing that?”

“Hmm? Doing what?”

He nodded toward my finger. “That.”

“I’m just enjoying my jello.”

He made sort of a strangled noise. “So it’s purely unintentional then.”

“What?” I looked at him in confusion.

He ran a hand down his forehead. “Maker’s breath. All right, we can stop at the grocery store on the way home after class.”

I tried not to start at his use of the word ‘home’. It technically was home for ‘the foreseeable future’, so I figured that I should probably get used to calling it that.

 ...

After my last class of the day, Cullen made good on his promise to stop at the grocery store.

After establishing that Cullen didn’t have any food allergies, I loaded up the cart. I started with the dry goods: cereal, rice, noodles, and baking supplies; then moved onto the meat section: chicken, steak, ground beef. I picked up some eggs, butter, yogurt, cheese and a jug of milk. From the produce section I grabbed a large assortment of fruits and veggies.

Cullen looked over my shoulder as I piled groceries into the cart. “Are we feeding a small army?”

“I like eating.” I shrugged. “I’m getting a few things to get us through the next few weeks if need be. I’m also going to make extra to freeze.”

“How long are you planning on to stay at the apartment for?”

I shrugged, noting that he avoided saying the words ‘safe house’ or ‘protective custody’. “Indefinitely. Like you said. That way I’ll be pleasantly surprised when it’s over.”

His gaze settled back on the cart and he frowned, the miniscule movement pulling at the scar on his lip. “That is an awful lot of vegetables.”

“Scared of veggies, Cullen?” I teased as I grabbed a head of cauliflower and a head of broccoli.

“Of course not.”

“Good. Because you need to eat your veggies if you want to grow big and strong.”

“I’m thirty-one. I’m fairly certain I have ceased growing at this point.”

“Maybe you’re meant to be seven feet tall. Have you ever thought of that?”

“I can already reach the top shelf.” He replied dryly.

Creators help me, I giggled.

The corner of his lip pulled up into a smile. “I am perfectly happy the height I am, thank you.”

He was very handsome when he smiled.

I shook the thought from my head.

Bad idea.

I was very newly involved with someone else.

“I’m still putting veggies in everything. I only learned one thing from my mother, and that was how to pack as many veggies as humanly possible into anything I cook.”

He paused in his slightly distaste filled examination of the vegetables in the cart, curiosity burning in his gaze. “That’s the only thing your mother taught you?”

Woops. I had revealed too much of my sad childhood. “She…uh…she did her best, I suppose. She wasn’t really equipped to take care of anyone other than herself.”

“If you don’t want to talk about it—“

Since I had already let that little bit slip I figured I might as well tell him the rest of my sob story. “No, it’s fine. My mom was fifteen when she had me, so she wasn’t around much while I was growing up. I bounced around from relative to relative. I ended up staying mostly with my grandparents. The time my mother did spend with me, we spent cooking. That’s why stability and routine are such a big thing for me now. I didn’t really have that growing up. So if I’m being difficult about any part of this, that’s why. Also because I worked fucking hard to get a full scholarship to the Psychology program at Haven. I didn’t have anyone in my life willing to help pay my way.”

“I’m sorry that you had a rough time growing up.”

He didn’t know the half of it. “It wasn’t all bad. And I do have some great memories cooking with my mom. You’ve got to roll with the bad bits to truly appreciate the good bits.”

He gave me an appraising look. “I suppose you do.”

...

I looked across the parking lot as we piled the groceries into the trunk of Cullen's car. “What do you say we stop at the liquor store?”

He eyed the liquor store warily. “I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”

“Oh, come on. Be a sport.”

“All right. Fine. We can have a look.”

I walked across the parking lot and entered the liquor store.

Cullen followed immediately behind me.

I grabbed a cart.

He gave me a look.

I put four bottles of wine in the cart.

He gave me a look.

“This wine is for cooking, Cullen. I swear.” I told him, crossing my fingers behind my back discreetly.

He sighed and wandered off as I went up and down the aisles.

When I came across him, he was turning a bottle of something over in his hands, the label read ‘Mackay’s Epic Single Malt’.

I inched closer silently and caught the longing look in his eyes. “You know you waaaant it.”

He jumped a little at my sudden appearance at his shoulder. Literal decades spent around Sera had helped me hone my sneaking skills.

“You should listen to your girlfriend.” The clerk chimed helpfully from the nearby till. “You won’t regret it. This whisky is older than the Maker and smoother than elven baby-butt.”

“Oh, she’s—“ Cullen started.

“Yes. I am girlfriend.” I cut in, seeing the opportunity for a little bit of fun. “Elven baby-butt, Cullen. Do it.”

He sighed. “Fine.”

He walked up to the till and set the bottle down gently.

I placed a comically large bottle of vodka on the counter next to the bottles of wine and Cullen’s elven baby-butt whiskey.

Cullen raised an eyebrow.

I shrugged. “Also for cooking.”

“What exactly are you going to cook with vodka?”

“Pasta alla vodka.”

“You just made that up.” He accused.

“No,” I insisted. “It’s a real thing. It’s pasta with a tomato-cream based sauce, with vodka in it.”

“That…sounds sort of terrible.”

“Yes, it does. But that doesn’t change the fact that it still exists.”

“Throwing a party?” The clerk asked cheerfully as he rang us through.

“Oh, no. Just stocking up for the winter. We’re going home to watch TV with our five dogs.” I replied.

Cullen shot me a severely unimpressed look.

The clerk paused in his ringing. “That’s a lot of dogs.”

“Yeah, they’re all rescues. They’re like our babies.” I wanted to say ‘at least until this one puts a baby in me’ while gesturing at Cullen, but I figured that would be pushing the boundaries of Cullen’s willingness to put up with my shit.

The clerk and I talked amiably about dogs for a few minutes since the liquor store was dead.

“Why?” Cullen asked in exasperation once we were out of the store and in the safety of his car.

I shrugged. “Boredom, mostly. Plus, this isn’t where I normally buy my liquor. So it’s fine.”

“Would you even really want that many dogs?”

I let out a surprised little laugh. “That’s the issue you had with that? The number of fictional dogs that we own?”

“I took issue with the entire encounter.” He replied dryly. “But I’m trying not to dwell.”

“Fair. I would love to have that many dogs,” I said honestly. “I miss dogs. My grandparents had a Mabari. They had to put it down when I was thirteen though. I loved that lazy fat ass. He was so stupid in the best possible ways. Like, when you threw a ball in his general direction he would dodge it. Can you imagine? A dog that dodges balls. Completely bonkers.”

 ...

“What would you like to tackle first?” Cullen asked once all of the groceries were put away.

“Spaghetti sauce. That’ll be the most time consuming. I better get started if we want to have dinner before midnight.”

“I’ll help.”

“Oh, you don’t have to.” I waved my hand dismissively.

“I want to. It’s not fair for you to have to do all the work when I’ll be enjoying the food as well.”

I smirked up at him. “Bold of you to assume you’ll actually enjoy my cooking.”

He smiled back at me. “I exist mainly on TV dinners. My stomach is made of steel.”

“Fair.”

I pulled two cutting boards out of the cupboard and grabbed two knives from the knife block.

With the limited usable counter space, we stood elbow-to-elbow at the counter chopping vegetables in comfortable silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...that was sex. 
> 
> I was embarrassed as hell (and blushing like crazy) writing that...but I'm trying to do more things that are outside of my comfort zone, so bam, sex scene(s).
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	7. Nachos

I brought my yoga mat over to the balcony window. The view was nothing to write home about, unless you found the brick siding of adjacent buildings to be a riveting topic of discussion. I personally didn't. I could take solace in the fact that, although I might no be able to see anything exciting, it meant nothing exciting could see me either.

It was early Saturday morning, there was an hour and a half before the sun would be making its appearance. The sky was still dark, but the glow of the city provided more than enough light for me to see by without having to turn on any of the apartment lights.

I moved easily through my poses, and my mind drifted towards everything that had happened in the past week.

I had witnessed a murder, but strangely enough that wasn’t the 'life-altering' event that I had been fixating on the most in the past eighteen hours or so.

I was a little conflicted about what had happened with Professor Solas.

The sex was good, there was no doubt about that. Definitely the best sex that I had ever had, not that that was saying much really.

I had only been with one other man, and he had been my first and only _real_ boyfriend. I was seventeen when things ended, and they had ended... _poorly_ to say the least, not that our relationship could have been considered particularly healthy up to that point. I wasn't even sure that I had loved him. He certainly hadn't loved me. I had just been a toy to him, something to pass the time with. He hadn't even seen me as a person.

So, it was more than fair to say that I was still messed up about everything that had happened. Not that I had ever  _actually_  attempted to deal with my feelings about the entire ordeal.

I really didn't want to let my hang-ups about my past affect my current/future relationships, but the fact that I hadn't heard from Professor Solas yet had me feeling less than confident in my recent life choices. I wasn't exactly sure how adult relationships were supposed to work, but I was fairly certain that I should have heard from him by now if he was at all interested in anything more than sex.

I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I wanted to give him the chance to contact me first.

I worried that if I made the first move, I would come off as clingy and scare him away.

But, the more time went by, the more I worried that maybe it had been a mistake to fuck him.

Normally yoga helped me clear my head, but today it was doing nothing to stop the swirling chaos of insecurity, and memories that I would rather leave dead and buried.

I needed to talk to Sera.

She would probably be less than thrilled about the whole situation given my track record with older men, but she wouldn't try to spare my feelings. She would tell me straight up if I was being an idiot. She was good for tough love. And tough love was what I needed.

I needed to text her.

That would have to wait until later though.

She would hunt me down and kill me—safe house or not—if I woke her up before noon on a Saturday.

I heard muffled muttering coming from Cullen’s room.

Was he on the phone?

Was he talking in his sleep?

Wow, the walls really _were_ thin. Though, not quite thin enough for me to make out exactly what he was saying from all the way across the apartment.

I caught a muffled, shouted ‘no’, then there was a loud ‘thunk’ followed by a curse.

Had he fallen out of bed?

The door to his room opened suddenly and he stepped out.

I was in downward facing dog—ass straight up in the air—when he emerged, because of course I was.

He seemed surprised to see me on the floor by the window in the semi-dark.

I sank down onto my mat, settling into a cross-legged position.

I figured it was the least sexual thing I could be doing.

“Renna?” He wiped a hand groggily over his face and up into his hair, causing his t-shirt to ride up and expose a strip of his stomach.

I tried not to stare, but that exposed strip of skin was an effective distraction from all the other shit I was thinking about.

I had to wonder, what would he do if I threw myself at him?

That right there was a thought that I couldn't afford to be entertaining. I had enough to deal with without adding my attraction to Cullen into the mix. I forced myself to look up at his face, ignoring the urge to memorize every detail of his skin, every freckle, every scar, the way it pulled taught over his abs when he—I felt my cheeks heat. Bad, Renna. Bad, bad, Renna.

His normally painstakingly disheveled hair was a mess in the best possible way. It made him seem less carefully composed, more human. As did the disgruntled look on his face. He looked very good first thing in the morning. Not that that was something that I should have been particularly fixated on given my current romantic status.

Throwing myself at the nearest semi-available man was not the way to solve my problems. In fact, I was fairly certain that it would make things a whole fuck of a lot worse.

“Good morning, Cullen. Did you sleep okay?” I tried for chipper, but it fell a little flat.

Luckily, he was too distracted by whatever was going on in his own head to notice whatever the fuck was going on in mine. He let out an exasperated breath. “Not particularly. What time is it?”

“6:37 am. Sorry if I woke you. I do yoga on Saturday and Sunday mornings.”

He sighed, rubbing at his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose as if he were trying to fight off an oncoming headache. “In your underwear?”

“I am working out. This is literally what a sports bra is for, Cullen. Also, these are shorts. Not panties. They cover my ass. My panties don’t.” I cringed inwardly as that last bit slipped out. Apparently I had already forgotten my promise to myself to dial back the whole sexuality thing.

“I’m aware.” He said dryly.

The dryness of his response caught me off guard. I had expected him to go red and start stammering at the mention of my panties. “Beg pardon?”

He frowned. “Your ass was hanging out yesterday while you were examining the state of the cupboards. I assumed that you knew.”

Apparently tired Cullen was not only adorably gruff, but he also wasn’t as carefully filtered or as easy to embarrass as fully awake Cullen. Good to know. And I had already figured that he had caught a peak of my ass, considering the awkward attempt to conceal his boner, but I had never expected him to bring it up in casual conversation.

I wanted to see how long it would be before the filter came back, but it was definitely time to stop talking about my panties. “I made coffee. Want some?”

He nodded appreciatively. And froze.

His gaze lingered on the side of my neck.

Fuck.

The hickey.

I had forgotten about it completely.

The last time I had seen it—late last night—it had been deep purple and roughly an inch in diameter.

I forced myself to stop from slapping a hand over it conspicuously. That would only make him think that I had something to hide. Which I did, of course but I didn’t need him knowing that.

He didn’t say anything, instead turning to the prepared pot of coffee with an unreadable expression.

I shifted my hair discreetly over my shoulder, breathing an inaudible sigh of relief that he had decided not to ask any questions.

Stupid, stupid. Not to mention a little trashy. I was wearing the mark of another man, displayed for the entire world to see. I shouldn't have been entertaining any sort of thoughts about how attractive I found Cullen.

I would have to remember to cover the hickey with some make up the first chance I got. Or I could go put on a turtleneck. That would probably look a little odd with the booty shorts. Admittedly, I shouldn't have been wearing them anyway, since they were inappropriately short.

“What are your plans for the day?” He asked as he downed his coffee in a single gulp.

I shrugged, watching his accelerated coffee consumption with mild fascination. “Studying. I guess.”

“All day?” He poured himself a second mug.

“That was the ill-conceived, half-assed plan, yes. I haven’t had a Saturday off in awhile. Not really sure what to do with myself.”

“I need to run out for an hour or two. Detective Pentaghast has requested that I come in and update her regarding your situation.”

“Should I come with you?”

“That won’t be necessary. You may remain here. I’ll have Officer Harding take over watch.”

“All right.” I nodded, trying not to let my actual excitement show. Cullen wasn’t bad company in the least, but a morning with Lace would hopefully serve as an adequate distraction from my obsessing over the fact that I still hadn’t heard from Professor Solas.

 

Approximately an hour later there was a knock on the door.

Cullen rose from his seat at the kitchen table—where he had a bunch of paperwork spread out—to answer it.

Lace politely greeted him before entering the apartment.

“Hey, Lace.” I nodded from my perch on the armrest of the couch, where I had been half-watching TV. I had gotten ‘dressed’ in a pair of sweat pants and an oversized t-shirt. The stretched out neckline kept the shirt from rubbing against my newly make up covered neck, but it also left a little too much of my collarbone and shoulder on display if I didn't pay enough attention to it's positioning. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was better than having the by-product of my poor life choices on display for the entire world to see.

“Renna.” She nodded back.

Cullen raised an eyebrow at our familiarity but didn’t say anything. He looked down at his watch. “I shouldn’t be gone any longer than three hours.”

“Yes, sir.” Lace and I said at the exact same time with completely different tones. Hers was respectful. Mine was much more teasing.

Cullen left with an exasperated expression on his face.

“So, studying?” Lace asked after waiting a beat.

“That was the plan.”

“As fun as it would be to watch you study until Detective Rutherford returns, I’ve got something much more exciting we can do to pass the time.”

“Oh? You know, the last time I was promised an exciting time, I wound up witnessing a murder and being placed in protective custody. Can you top that?” Maybe saying that hadn’t been the best idea. I wasn’t sure how much she actually knew about my situation. 

She frowned slightly. “Well, no. But I can promise that I will not make your situation any worse.”

“I’m listening.”

“Do you play video games?”

“I used to. Back when I actually had free time.”

“Wanna play Mario Kart?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s been awhile. I’m probably not very good anymore.” I bit my lip, deliberating. I didn’t particularly want to make an ass out of myself in front of my cool new potential friend.

“It’s like riding a bike. You never really forget. I’ll set it up and if you absolutely hate it, we can braid each other’s hair and watch chick flicks.”

“You don’t strike me as a chick flick kind of girl.”

“I’m not. That’s how confident I am that you’ll enjoy the break from reality.”

...

“Eat blue shell, fucker!” I yelled at the TV.

“Studying hard, are you?” Cullen asked dryly from the door.

I hadn’t even heard him come in.

I had been so absorbed in trying to knock Princess Peach out of first place.

Lace and I had been playing against the computers all morning.

She had been right.

Muscle memory had me playing more or less like a pro in no time.

Lace paused the game with an amused look on her face.

I stuck out my tongue at him. “I’m an adult. If I wish to take a break from my studies and relieve a little stress by taking it out on pixilated characters in a racing game, that is my prerogative. Sir.”

Cullen’s gaze slipped from me to the table. He eyed the half empty bottle of wine, then turned a disapproving look on Lace as he crossed his arms. “You’re on the clock, Officer Harding.”

She nodded towards me with a grin. “All her, Detective.”

I stuck my tongue out at her. “Tattletale.”

“’This wine is for cooking, Cullen. I swear.’” Cullen parroted back my words from the night before, affecting a slightly high-pitched—and also particularly unflattering—imitation of my voice.

Lace disguised her laugh as a cough.

I snorted. “Oh, you knew damn well I was gonna drink it.”

So maybe my perceived greatness at the game might have been a little skewed due to alcohol consumption. Maybe. Potentially. A little bit.

He sighed, relaxing his arms. “You’re right. I did. It’s barely noon, I hope you're aware.”

“So? It’s Saturday. I’ve got nowhere to be. I was thirsty and the water was all the way in the kitchen. The wine was conveniently by the couch. Where I left it.” Because I wanted to drink until I didn't feel feelings. “How did things go with Detective Pentaghast?”

“We can discuss that when you’re sober.”

“I’m not drunk!” I replied indignantly. I turned to Lace. “Tell him I’m not drunk!”

“You’re drunk.” She replied with a dry smile.

“Oh. I guess I am then. You’re the expert, Officer.”

Lace stood and turned to Cullen. “Well, I suppose I’ll be heading out then.”

He nodded. “Thank you for your time, Officer Harding.”

“It was no trouble at all, Detective Rutherford.” She gave him a respectful nod as she made her way past him to the door. She patted him on the arm before quietly adding, “Good luck.”

I gave her a disapproving look and pointed to my ears. “Hey. I heard that.”

She laughed.

My disapproval melted away into drunken affection. “I love you, Lace! You’re the best! Even if you are a meanie and a tattletale.”

She shook her head, a slight grin spreading across her face. “I’ll see you later, Renna.”

I blew her a kiss as she left.

“I didn’t realize the two of you were so friendly.” He remarked, grabbing a glass of water.

“I’ve never had an issue making friends…people generally tend to like me. Although, sometimes they like me a little too much, and sometimes they don't like me nearly enough.” I mused, mostly to myself.

He set the water down in front of me. “Drink.”

“Yes, mother.” I took a sip.

“What are you playing?”

“Mario Kart.”

He frowned. “Driving while intoxicated?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Is that disapproval I hear?”

His frown persisted. “Such things shouldn’t be encouraged.”

“It’s make believe. I would never _actually_ engage in drunk driving.”

“Good.”

“I was going to play a few more rounds and then call it quits.”

He nodded. “All right.”

“You wanna play with me, Detective?” There may or may not have been a little seductive lip biting involved.

He backed up half a step. “Oh, er…I don’t think that would be—“

“Scared I’ll kick your ass?” The flirtiness had disappeared, immediately replaced by drunken cockiness.

He sat down on the couch with a resigned sigh. “Fine. One round.”

“You’re too easy, you know that?” A grin spread across my face as I handed him Lace’s recently vacated controller. “Do you need me to show you how to play?”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ve played this with my nephew.” He pressed play.

I watched as he drove straight off the map, letting a little giggle escape my lips. “Is he better at it than you? Cause you kind of suck.”

“Just getting the hang of the controls and lulling you into a false sense of security.”

“Oh? If you’re so confident, then we should make things a little more… _interesting_.”

“Meaning?”

“Strip Mario Kart.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. That was the exact opposite of toning things down. That was what happened when I drank wine. What little filter I did possess disappeared totally and completely.

He paused the game and turned to look at me. “I ask this question purely academically of course, but how does one play strip Mario Kart?”

“You really are an old man, aren’t you?” I shook my head, biting my lip to keep from laughing. “It’s simple. You lose a race, you lose an article of clothing.”

“I see.” He kept his eyes trained studiously on the paused screen.

I had been expecting a hard no, but that reaction was pretty far from an outright denial of his interest in potentially seeing me strip. I let my voice drop to a more sensual tone, “You’re considering. I can tell. You know you want to.”

There was a bit of a blush staining his face, eyes still focused unwaveringly on the TV. “Eyes on the screen, Renna.”

“That’s no fun.” That still wasn't a no. But I was probably pushing my luck with his tolerance for my inappropriateness.

...

“You know,” I said as we finished up our fourth race, “if we were playing strip Mario Kart, you would be down to your skivvies. And I would be sitting here without a shirt on.”

I would probably also be more than halfway onto his lap with my tongue in his mouth, but I didn’t voice that particular thought.

He had lost the first three races, barely edging me out to win the last one.

He gave me a puzzled look. “Why would your shirt be the first thing to go?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Well, you’ve already seen my panties, so they're old news, right?”

He swallowed. “Most people might start with socks.”

I leaned closer and put my hand on his chest. “I’m not most people, Detective.”

“Uh…” He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

I immediately leaned back. “Oh Creators. I could really go for some nachos, Cullen. Cullen. Let’s make nachos!”

He raised an eyebrow at my sudden outburst. “Did you ingest anything other than the wine?”

“If you’re asking if I’ve done drugs, Cullen. Then the answer is no. Not even once. Okay, maybe once. Or twice. Definitely no more than ten times. Fifteen tops. Twenty? Perhaps. I might have smoked a little elfroot back in my first year of University. But only during study groups. And everyone was doing it. So it doesn’t actually count. Wait. Shit. Should I be telling you about that? You’re a cop. And I’m a delinquent.”

“So, wine is the only thing you’ve had today.” He asked incredulously, thankfully choosing to ignore the part where I divulged my past recreational drug use.

“Yup. Welcome to wine drunk Renna.” I gestured to myself grandly.

“You’ve only had half a bottle.”

“But it was like 15% alcohol and I am a small woman. I am what you call a lightweight, Detective. How much wine does it take you to get drunk?”

He gave me a disapproving look. “I am not going to answer that.”

I giggled. “Is the number of drinks embarrassingly high, or embarrassingly low?”

“I wouldn't know. I don’t drink wine for the purpose of getting drunk.”

“Right. You drink elven-baby-butt whisky. Like some sort of grown up.”

He sighed.

“So, where did we land on those nachos? I can make them all by myself, but I may require some mild supervision.”

I jumped up from the couch and skipped to the kitchen.

Cullen supervised from the kitchen table up to the point where I pulled out a knife to chop peppers. He gave me a slightly panicked look, then he took over completely while I directed him from my perch atop the counter.

After the nachos had been completed—by him—and devoured—by me—we turned on the TV, sitting side by side on the couch. When I failed to provide an alternative, he put on some sort of war documentary. Normally it was something I would find fascinating. He was a perfect gentleman, keeping a careful distance between us, despite the fact that I kept sort of flopping all over the couch. At one point I was laying upside down with my legs dangling over the back of the couch. I also spent some time balanced on the armrest. And the back of the couch.

One documentary turned into two, then four, not that I was paying any particular sort of attention to any of them. Afternoon turned to evening, turned to night.

I took a swig out of the wine bottle every time Cullen left the room.

“Let’s build a fort!” I exclaimed as the clock neared 9:00 pm.

He examined me closely. “How are you still drunk?”

“The magic of wine.” I wiggled my fingers at him for emphasis.

Confusion turned to suspicion. “How much have you _actually_ had to drink?”

“Enough to want to build a fort!”

“So I won’t find a completely empty bottle lying around somewhere?”

“Nope. Wine drunk Renna is forever, Cullen. She sticks around long after her welcome has worn out. So, fort?”

“I think it’s time for bed, Renna.”

I batted my eyelashes at him, allowing my shirt to slide down to expose my collarbone. I had been losing that battle all night anyway, showing off frankly indecent amounts of my skin. “If you want to get me into bed, all you have to do is ask.”

“Andraste give me strength.” He muttered under his breath, as he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

I tugged my shirt back up, patting him on the arm. “You need to loosen up! Drink some wine and build a fort with me!”

He ran his hand down his face in something like frustration. He turned a mildly exasperated look on me. “I will not do either of those things.”

“Fine. I’ll drink all the wine and build the fort all by myself.”

“I think you’ve had enough…” He grabbed the wine off the table, pausing to give the bottle a surprised shake. “Have you been drinking from this every time I leave the room?”

“Maaaaybe.” I said in a singsong tone, rocking side to side.

He held it up to the light, exasperation clear on his face. “There is significantly less than there was when I arrived back home.”

I threw a blanket over my head. “I can’t hear you. I’m in my fort.”

“I am going to bed.” His weight left the couch.

“Wait! Wait!” I threw the blanket off my head. I wasn’t ready for him to leave me alone yet. I was having fun. And I had forgotten about the things I was trying to forget about. Which was great. “Cullen. Cullen!”

He had paused by his bedroom door, most likely thrown by the amount of distress in my voice if the tension in his body was anything to go by. “What is it?”

I thought for a moment before throwing out the most burning question I had. It was something I had wanted to know the answer to for at least the past thirty-two seconds. “Do penguins have knees?”

He sighed, posture relaxing. “I don’t know, Renna.”

“Can they jump?”

“I don’t know, Renna.”

“I know they can’t fly.”

“Good night, Renna.”

I tried to stand but my legs wouldn’t cooperate. “Wait!”

He sighed again. “What is it now?”

“Can you help me up? The world is all spinny, and my feet don’t work.”

He crossed the room and helped me into a standing position. When I made it clear that I couldn’t be trusted to stay upright on my own he slung my arm over his shoulder and swept me into his arms bridal style.

“You’re so strong!” I squeezed his shoulder with a giggle as I leaned heavily against his chest. “Do you work out?”

Another sigh escaped his lips as we crossed the threshold into my room.

He set me down beside the bed. I wobbled a little, clinging to his arm a little longer than strictly necessary before flopping face down on the bed, fully clothed. “Good night, Cullen. Thank you for taking care of my drunk ass. And thank you for feeding me nachos.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“I will mention it until the end of time. They were fucking amazing nachos, Cullen. You make the best nachos. The best!” I snuck a glance at him over my shoulder.

He turned to leave, an almost tender smile on his lips. “Have a pleasant sleep, Renna.”

“You too, Commander.”

“Commander?” He paused with his hand on the light switch, smile giving way to a look of mild confusion.

“I dunno, you just look like a 'commander' to me. All big, and strong, and... _commanding_.” I turned and muttered sleepily into my pillow, "I like to be commanded. You can command _me_ anytime, Commander."

...

I was uncomfortable.

I had fallen asleep in my clothes.

I shimmied out of my pants.

That made it a little better.

My mouth felt furry.

I really needed to pee.

I turned on the lamp on my nightstand.

It was a little after midnight.

I had been asleep for a little less than three hours.

I got up and stumbled to the washroom, narrowly avoiding a collision with the dresser. Apparently my feet still weren’t working quite right.

After taking care of pressing matters—like peeing and brushing my teeth—I stumbled back towards the bed, yanking my shirt over my head and tossing it onto the pile of dirty laundry on the floor in the corner.

I was about to slip off my bra and give it the same treatment, but something stopped me.

The pile of clothes had moved.

“What the—“ I inched closer, snagging a pen off the desk to poke at the shirt on top. I lifted it to the side and let out a piercing scream, scrambling across the room. “Cullen! CULLEN!”

Any lingering fuzziness from the wine vanished in an instant.

 _Thousands of tiny legs, tickling my exposed skin._  
**_"Let me out!"_**  
**_"Let me the fuck out!"_**  
**_"I need to get out!"_**  
_I was screaming._  
_I was begging._  
_They were everywhere._  
_They were in my mouth._  
_I was choking, gagging._  
_I couldn’t breathe._  
_I stared at the door in frozen terror, willing it to open._  
_Silent tears rolling down my face. If I screamed again, more would get in._  
**_Please._**  
**_Just let me out._**  
**_Please._**

The sound of Cullen bursting into my room brought me back to the present.

There must have the right amount of panic in my voice because he had entered armed with an umbrella. His gaze swept the room. “What? What is it?”

“Get him! Get him! Get him!” I pointed frantically to the corner from my perch a top the desk. I wasn’t entirely sure how I had gotten up there.

“What?” This time when the word escaped his lips it was tinged with confusion. He lowered his ‘weapon’. “There isn’t anyone—“

“How can you not see him? He’s right there!” I gestured hysterically at the corner.

“Who—“

“The giant spider!” I let out another squeal.

“Spider?” It was then that he seemed to take note of what I was wearing. Or rather, not wearing. “Maker’s breath!” He turned abruptly to face the wall. “Where are your clothes?”

His blush had spread to the back of his neck.

“I was getting ready for bed!”

“When I left you were already in bed! Will you please put some clothes on?”

“I will once you get rid of the spider!”

He didn’t say anything as he inched toward the door without turning to face me.

“Hey! Where are you going? Please don’t leave me alone!” It came out as a whine, but I didn’t particularly care.

He returned moments later with a piece of paper and a cup.

I watched, both horrified and transfixed, unable to tear my gaze away as he coaxed the spider onto the paper, then trapped it in the cup.

He disappeared out of my room and I heard the balcony door open.

I scrambled down from my perch and hastily threw on my robe. I poked my head out into the living room. “Is it safe?”

“Yes. I have released the spider on the balcony.”

“What if it gets back in again?”

“I assume we’ll have a repeat of this, then. Hopefully with you more fully clothed.” He avoided looking at me, even though I was covered from neck to knee in plush pink fleece.

I hugged the robe to myself, feeling some of the adrenaline starting to fade. “Thank you for…you know. Dealing with the giant spider.”

He crossed his arms. “That was not a large spider.”

I crossed my arms. “He was like the size of my palm!”

“He was tiny.”

“The size of my entire face, Cullen!”

“Tiny.”

I frowned at him. “ _I_ am tiny, Cullen. He was practically the length of my forearm.”

“You should see the one under your bed.”

The frown slipped from my face, leaving behind what I’m certain was pure bewilderment. “What?”

“The spider under your bed." He repeated with a quiet sort of insistence. "It was at least twice the size of the one hiding in your clothes.”

“Please tell me that you’re joking, Cullen. Please.” My tone stopped just short of begging.

He didn’t say anything.

“Cullen. You’re joking, right?”

He closed the door to his room, expression carefully blank.

“Cullen?” It came out as a bit of a squeak.

Well, fuck. I wouldn't be getting any sleep any time soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't entirely happy with this chapter...there were a few parts that I wrote and rewrote several times. Which is why I didn't post this yesterday (or this morning) like I intended to. But it's done and now I can move forward with the story (and my life, haha).
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	8. Flour

I was sitting in the middle of the living room cross-legged. I had already completed my yoga for the morning, and my nose was planted steadfastly in a textbook. I stretched until my elbows were firmly planted on the floor and my chest was resting on my legs.

I wasn’t sure how long I had been conscious for by the time I heard the sounds of movement coming from Cullen’s room, much less irate than the previous morning.

I was still upset at him. There was no doubt about that.

He had good-naturedly put up with me all day yesterday. Barely acknowledging me—incredibly drunkenly—throwing myself at him. He had barely even gotten flustered.

Then there was the shit with the spider.

The only thing I could think of that was different about our later interaction was the fact that I had been in my underwear. When he came charging to my rescue the night before I had been hopping around in a very see-through red lace bra and matching panties. 

Admittedly, that sort of thing didn’t exactly inspire platonic feelings.

So, I could maybe sort of see how all of our interactions yesterday might have been…frustrating for him, in a traditional sense—because I had been acting like an overgrown toddler—and maybe even a tiny bit in a sexual sense—because of the whole _bra and panties_ debacle.

Still, he had taken things one step too far when he joked about something that clearly terrified the absolute crap out of me.

At least this morning I was fully clothed in a pair of yoga pants and a long sleeved shirt, so there was no chance of embarrassing him with my lack of clothes.

“Early morning yoga again?” He asked from his doorway.

“Every Saturday and Sunday.” I replied, sparing him a brief glance.

His gaze slid to the blankets heaped on the couch. “Have you been out here all night?”

“Of course not.” I sniffed, as if offended by his suggestion. I pulled myself up into a proper sitting position. “I’ve also been to the bathroom.”

“Why—“ Realization dawned on his face. “Renna, I was joking about the spider.”

“That was sort of in poor taste, wasn’t it?” My voice and accompanying look were a little less friendly than he was probably used to from me.

He looked a little thrown by my tone. “I apologize. I didn’t realize—“

“That I am legitimately terrified of spiders? Well, I am. My grandparents had this crawl space under their house. It was absolutely infested with spiders. And my cousins…well, they were fucking dicks to put it nicely. They got a kick out of tormenting me. They were older. And bigger. And if I fought back _I_ was the one that got in trouble. You can probably see where this is going...I was seven the first time they locked me in the crawl space.” I hugged my knees to my chest, staring at spot on the floor and trying to focus on thinking about anything but that fucking crawl space.

“The first time?” He echoed, mild horror evident in his voice, I snuck a glance at him and that same horror was painted on his face too.

I nodded, eyes shifting back to the floor. “Yeah. Like I said, they were fucking dicks. The spiders were everywhere. Tickling my skin. Getting caught in my hair. They got in my mouth when I tried to scream for help. I’m not sure how long I was in there for that first time. Or any subsequent time really. Time sort of…stood still. My grandparents never even noticed when I went missing. They doted on my cousins though. They could do no wrong. I was the unwanted kid of their unwanted youngest daughter. They were done having kids. And then bam, along came my mother. The accident. And grandpa never really let her forget it. It was no wonder she turned out the way that she did. Or why I turned out the way I did.” I had never talked about this with anyone. Not even Sera. Some things were just better left dead and buried, so I wasn’t sure why I was bringing it up with Cullen. I blamed my chattiness on sleep deprivation.

“I like the way you turned out.” The admission was quiet. And a lot closer than he had been only seconds earlier. He moved very quietly for someone his size.

“I appreciate you saying that...but you don’t even know me.” I gave him a sad sort of smile, meeting his sympathetic gaze.

“I’d like to.” Sincerity replaced the sympathy in his eyes. Immediately followed by another look of mild horror, as he realized what he had said.

I felt my face heat and I looked away. How the fuck was I supposed to respond to that? This was getting into trashy romance novel territory. Next we’d be professing our undying love for one another and clothes would be flying. Which was why this right here—whatever it was—was a bad fucking idea. I shook my head. “I am very, very tired.”

He nodded as if that was an appropriate response to his confession. “Forgive me. That was wildly inappropriate.”

“I—” I bit my lip. I didn’t know how to finish that sentence.

Thankfully he was done discussing it anyway. He moved to the kitchen. “Would it be possible for us to forget that I said that?”

I felt my face slip into a frown, then I reminded myself that forgetting was the best thing to do. “Of course. Yeah. We can do that. Let’s do that.”

“So," He started after a moment of fiddling with the coffee maker and avoiding my gaze. "Did you get any sleep at all last night?”

“About an hour. Maybe. After the initial booze fueled pass out.”

“You look like you could use some rest.”

The corner of my mouth quirked up. “That’s a nice way to say that I look like shit.”

“I didn’t mean—“

“Relax. I am fully aware of what I look like sleep deprived. No need to sugar coat it.”

“Why don’t you go take a nap?”

I bit my lip, wringing my hands together. “Well—“

He caught on to the reason for my hesitancy immediately. “You’re worried that there might be spiders lurking in your room.”

I nodded.

“I’ll check it for you.” He volunteered.

“Oh, you don’t have—“

“Yes, I do. I feel responsible for you sleepless night.”

I nearly said something inappropriate regarding his choice of words, but I thought better of it. A sign of my budding maturity, surely.

Or a sign that I was dead ass tired.

I leaned against the doorframe of my bedroom as a grown ass man catered to my childish fears, leaving no furniture unsearched in his pursuit of spiders. He even got down on his hands and knees, shining the light from his phone under the bed.

“Everything appears to be clear.” He stood. “Renna...I wanted to sincerely apologize for my ‘joke’. It wasn’t funny in the slightest. I had no idea about your past, but that doesn’t excuse—“

I cut him off. “I should probably apologize too.”

“What do you have to apologize for?” He looked genuinely confused.

“Getting drunk. I can’t be too sure, but I’m fairly certain that I may or may not have said some things to you that may or may not have been incredibly inappropriate. I think I felt you up too? I vaguely remember something about arm muscles.” I wrinkled my nose and closed my eyes, cringing at the memory. “I’ve got some shit going on and…I got trashed because I didn’t want to deal it. And I feel comfortable with you…And I should probably also apologize for screaming you awake at midnight to expose you to my arachnophobia.”

“It’s a legitimate fear. You don’t have to apologize for it. And just so you know, you can talk to me—that is if you want to—I don’t want you to feel obligated—“ He paused, taking a deep breath. “What I mean to say is, I’ve been told that I’m a good listener. And if I’m being completely honest, I feel like an ass for my behavior last night.”

He was adorable. And Creators help me I had already forgiven him. Too bad he didn’t know exactly what he was offering to hear. My romantic issues with another man—who still hadn’t texted me by the way. “Thanks…but I’m not ready to talk about it quite yet.”

“All right. But if you change your mind…”

“You’ve done plenty already. Up until the whole spider thing, you put up with me and you took good care of me and that honestly helped a lot. It took my mind off of things. So thank you. You’re a great guy. Even if your sense of humor could use some work.”

He nodded. “I suppose I should leave you to your nap then.”

“Thanks. Again.” I smiled at him gratefully, before throwing myself onto the bed and passing the fuck out.

...

I slept well into the afternoon.

When I finally dragged myself out of bed, Cullen was sitting in the middle of the living room floor, case files spread out in a semi-circle around him. He had moved the coffee table over by the balcony door.

“Mind if I watch some TV?” I asked.

He glanced up at me—a small smile on his lips—before rifling through one of the files and producing a piece of paper. “Not at all.”

I climbed over the back of the couch—so as not to disturb the ring of files—and settled in beside his right shoulder, knees pulled up to my chest. “What are you working on?”

“A case.” He kept his eyes trained on the text-heavy piece of paper in his hand.

I assumed that he was being vague for a reason. I settled my chin on my knees. “Should I be averting my eyes?”

“No, it’s all right. It’s your case.”

I tilted my head to the side. “I have a case?”

“Well, technically it’s to do with Justinia’s murder.”

“Ah.”

“Speaking of, Cassandra got the lab results back on your shoes and clothes from that night.”

“Oh? And?”

“There were trace amounts of Justinia’s blood found on your clothes.” He replied without looking up from his file.

“Oh. That’s…” I scrunched my eyes shut tightly and felt the color drain from my face as the scene from the club played once again before my eyes. There was so much blood, and apparently I had been wearing some if it for the remainder of my evening at the Divine Conclave. I had gone nearly four days without thinking about it at all. And now I felt sick.

He shifted. “Renna? Are you all right?”

I opened my eyes to find his concerned gaze searching my face. “It’s just that blood really isn’t my thing.”

“Ah.” His gaze turned regretful. “I apologize, I sometimes forget that I’m desensitized to things that most people would find horrific.”

I gave him a weak smile. “It’s sort of part of the job description.”

“How do you feel about chemicals?”

“Significantly better than I do about blood, why?”

“The chemical analysis on your shoes revealed a compound used in the production of red lyrium.”

“Meaning Corypheus is storing production supplies at the Divine Conclave.” I wasn’t sure if it was actually okay for him to be discussing an open investigation with me, but as long as he wanted to talk, I was willing to be his sounding board. As long as he didn't talk about blood again.

“That would be my assumption as well. But, connecting Corypheus directly to the club has proven…challenging to say the least. We need a warrant—”

“To search the club.” I nodded. “And by the time you go through the proper channels, all of the evidence will likely be destroyed or removed.”

He let out a little surprised chuckle. “How did—Right. Forensic Psychology student.”

"Yup." I smiled brightly at him. "That is definitely why I have a basic understanding of how the law works and it has nothing to do with the fact that I secretly love binge-watching crime dramas with Sera." 

We sat in silence for a few minutes while I tried to decide what I wanted to watch.

He gave a slightly frustrated sigh. “Something about all of this just isn’t adding up.”

“Hmm? What's that?” I paused my browsing, directing my full attention back to him.

“Why was Divine Justinia at the Divine Conclave in the first place? She was the head of the Chantry. She told no one she was going there. Not even Cassandra. And Cassandra has been in charge of tracking Corypheus’ whereabouts for some time now.”

“Maybe she knew Corypheus was going to be there? And maybe she wanted to talk to him?”

“Maybe.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, wincing.

The motion had drawn attention to the muscles of his shoulders and neck. He had truly spectacular muscles. I stared for a moment longer than could necessarily be considered appropriate. If I concentrated hard enough, I could remember what it felt like to be pressed against those muscles and cradled in his arms. I was glad he couldn't see the blush that was almost certainly staining my face as focused as he was on his files. “You okay?”

“It’s just a crick. I’m afraid I’m just not as young as I used to be,” he said with a sigh, resting his head against the couch and closing his eyes.

“You’re only thirty-one. And you’re actually in shape. If you’re having problems then there’s absolutely no hope for me.” I muttered, resisting the urge to flick his ear.

“I am reasonably certain that you will age just fine.” He sat up straight, focus shifting back to the files. He winced again.

“I can help with that if you’d like. I’ve been told I give a mean neck rub.” I told myself that it wasn’t inappropriate to offer him a neck massage because I would have done the same for Sera. It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that I wanted to feel the flex of his muscles under my fingers. Nope. Nothing to do with that at all.

He looked conflicted for a moment, before giving me a cautious nod. “I would appreciate that. Thank you.”

I shuffled over so that I was directly behind him and let my hands rest gently on his shoulders.

He tensed at my touch.

I pulled away instantly. “You kind of need to relax if you want these fingers to work their magic,” I teased lightly.

“Right. I apologize.”

I settled my hands back into position, thumbs poised over the back of his neck. I applied firm pressure, rubbing in circular motions. “How’s that feel?”

He let out a little groan before clearing his throat. “Good. Thank you.”

Oh, Creators. That groan. It did things to my insides. Things that I didn’t need to be thinking about. Before I realized what I was doing, my fingers slid into his hair, teasing against his scalp.

His breath hitched.

So did mine.

His shoulders stiffened.

Oh. Fuck.

I immediately pulled my hands away from him, clasping them tightly in my lap.

“If you’ll excuse me, I just remembered that I need a shower.” He stood abruptly, gathering his case files into a neat stack.

I sat unmoving on the couch as he set his stack of files on the kitchen table and disappeared into the bathroom, keeping his back to me the entire time.

Oh, I had done a very bad thing.

I never should have offered to give him a neck rub.

It was supremely inappropriate.

And I _definitely_ shouldn’t have touched his hair.

I sighed.

It was done. I couldn’t exactly take it back.

The shower started up and some classic rock music started blaring.

At least that gave me the chance to talk to Sera with slightly less chance of being overheard.

“Ren!” She greeted after three rings.

“Hey, Ser Bear.”

“Still can’t say where ya are, eh?”

“Nope. Got to keep it on the down low. It wouldn’t be much of a safe house if I told you where it was.”

“Fiiiine.” She gave a dramatic sigh. “What’s new with ya?”

I decided to start with the least recent piece of news. “I may have…uh…fucked my teacher.”

“Wot? What do ya mean may have? Yer not sure? How the hell did that happen?”

If she was going to be a smart ass, so was I. “Against his office wall.”

“Ugh. Gross.”

“You asked.”

“Not quite the details I was fishin’ for, Ren. Is this that Sole-ass guy ya been yammerin’ ‘bout?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know you two were a thing.”

“We are. We aren’t. I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

She was silent for a moment. “Are ya sure ‘complicated’ is a good idea for ya?”

“Nope. I know for a fact that it’s not.”

“Well, wot’s complicated ‘bout it?”

“I haven’t talked to him since it happened.” I lowered my voice to a whisper, even though I could still hear the shower and Cullen’s music. “And I may also have a slight inappropriate _thing_ —that may or may not _be_ a _thing_ —for Cullen.”

“Oh, Ren. Do his bits like yer bits back?”

“I don’t know anything about Cullen’s bits, Sera.” I paused. “Well, that’s not entirely true.”

“Meanin’?” She asked skeptically.

“I may or may not have given him an accidental boner. Accidentally.”

She snorted a laugh. “Wot happened to ya, Ren? Yer supposed to be the innocent one.”

“I’m glad that you find my emotional torment amusing.” I groaned and rested my head on the table, ignoring the jab at my level of innocence. “Yesterday I asked him to play strip Mario Kart. And build a fort with me. And I might have propositioned him a time or seven. The details are a little hazy.”

“Oooo, I love wine drunk Renna! She’s so much fun!”

“Not helping, Sera. This afternoon I…I gave him a neck rub.”

“Wot's wrong with that? Were ya topless? Did ya rub yer tits all over him?”

I gave an exasperated sigh. “No. And fuck no.”

“Then it was just a friendly lil’ rub.”

“I’m not sure that my top or lack thereof defines how ‘friendly’ a 'rub' is.”

“Did ya tell him to tell ya if he’s uncomfortable?”

“Yeah...”

“Did he tell ya he’s uncomfortable?”

I frowned. “Well, no.”

“Then he’s enjoyin’ the attention.”

“Still not helpful.”

“If ya want _actual_ help, can we meet fer lunch or somethin’? I miss yer face.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Wot if I just ambush ya on campus tomorrow? Yer still goin’ to class, yeah?”

“You know that I am.”

“Good. See ya at the cafeteria at noon.”

After I got off the phone with Sera, I decided to do some baking.

I needed something mindless to do.

And she would be disappointed if I showed up empty handed.

I put on some music of my own, dancing around and singing along while I pulled ingredients out of the cupboards.

I got the first batch of cinnamon buns into the oven before I heard the bathroom door open.

I could see Cullen’s reflection in the microwave. He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, a slight smile on his face. He seemed much more relaxed than he had when he bolted to the safety of the bathroom to have his shower.

He was mercifully—or maybe disappointingly—wearing a shirt.

“What’s up?” I asked without turning around.

“What are you making?” He asked instead of answering my question.

“Cinnamon buns.” I turned and grinned up at him.

“They smell amazing.”

“They taste pretty amazing too. They’re Sera’s favorite. I’m working on banana muffins next. I’m in a baking mood. Got any requests?”

“Chocolate chip cookies.” He said after a moment of thought.

“I believe that could be arranged.”

He studied my face closely. “You’ve got some flour on your cheek.”

“Where?” I swatted at my face.

“No.” He shook his head with a little smile. “Here, let me.”

Before I could protest, he crossed the room and wiped my face with a gentle brush of his knuckles.

He paused, fingers lingering on my cheek.

The smile slipped from his lips as he realized exactly what he had just done.

He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue.

My heart did a little flip.

Oh.

Oh, no.

My skin tingled where his touch still remained, sending heat dancing through my body.

I couldn’t breathe.

It didn’t look like he was breathing either.

We were frozen.

Then the oven timer went off, shattering the spell.

I jumped away from him, trying not to make it too obvious that I was in fact jumping away from him.

He excused himself, muttering something about ‘case files’ before disappearing into his room.

In the course of a single weekend, things had become entirely too domestic between us. Lines that shouldn’t have ever been blurred had been totally and completely obliterated. I shouldn’t have been getting drunk around him. And I certainly shouldn’t have been offering him neck massages.

He was in charge of providing me with protective custody.

And even if he weren't, I was in a relationship with someone else.

Sort of.

If a quickie against a wall counted as a relationship.

And until I knew what the fuck was going on there, it definitely wasn’t fair for me to continue flirting with Cullen.

It wasn’t fair—to him or Professor Solas.

After I finished up my baking, I spent the remainder of the evening in my room under the—incredibly false—illusion of studying for my upcoming midterms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be up in a few days. It was originally part of this chapter...but it sort of got away from me and nearly doubled the word count, soooo I split it into two.
> 
> Which means I've added another chapter to the story. Woohoo! Now we're at 20!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	9. Messy

I had been holding out hope that he was just preoccupied with other things over the weekend, but to my complete and utter devastation, Professor Solas didn’t even so much as acknowledge me during his class the next day.

I told myself it was fine—even though it wasn’t.

Rationally, I knew that he was a busy man—even though he had seemed to have time for me in the brief window of time between him saying he cared for me and us going at it like two teenagers against his office wall.

I was on edge. Feeling helpless and anxious.

I hated it.

Fuck waiting for him. I was going to text him when I got home. I was going to get some damned answers.

Cullen seemed to sense my mood, keeping his distance as we made our way to the cafeteria. Or it was entirely possible that he was just keeping his distance because of all of the inappropriate touching that had occurred the day before. It was tough to say for sure.

We were barely through the cafeteria doors when Sera spotted me.

“Renna!” She took a running start and leapt into my arms.

The force of her small body hitting my small body knocked me flat on my ass.

“Sera. Renna didn’t mention that you were meeting us today.” Cullen disentangled us and—because she was on top—pulled Sera to her feet.

Woops. Was I supposed to tell him shit like that? Probably.

Sera crossed her arms. “I’m sure there’s loads o’ stuff that Renna hasn’t mentioned.”

I glared up at her.

“Wot? S’true. I bet he doesn’t know yer favorite color. Or which hand ya use to—”

“Sera!” I threw my hands over my face, mortified, and still sprawled on the ground. There was no good way for her to finish that sentence.

“Yer no fun.”

“I’m definitely all right with that.”

“Masturbate,” she finished helpfully, I assumed to Cullen. “I was gonna say masturbate.”

“Sera. Table. Now.” I gestured vaguely in the direction she had originally ambushed me from, one hand still over my face.

She let out a laugh. “Fine, fine.”

I still didn’t move, even when I was certain that she was gone.

“Are you all right?” Cullen asked, interrupting my attempt to disappear into the floor.

“Dying of embarrassment. But otherwise perfectly fine.” I snuck a glance up at him, luckily he seemed entertained rather than embarrassed.

“She’s quite the character.” Cullen mused, offering me a hand up.

“You don’t know the half of it.” I winced as I stood; ignoring the little tingle I felt when his hand enveloped mine. “I spoke too soon. I think she may have ruptured my spleen with her knee. You can live without that, right?”

He withdrew his hand from my grasp.

Had he felt that too?

His voice gave nothing away, “Technically, you can.” 

“Technically?” I repeated, surprised by his answer.

He nodded. “You’re more likely to develop infections without one.”

That answer hadn’t surprised me any less. “That’s sort of a weird thing to know.”

He shrugged. “Not when your younger sister is on track to become a doctor.”

“You have a sister?” I tried not to sound too surprised. It was the first little bit of personal information that he had shared with me.

“Two sisters and a brother.”

“And one of your sisters is going to med school?”

“Yes, but we’ve kept Sera long enough.” He gestured to where she was impatiently waiting for me at the table. “I’ll give the two of you a chance to catch up.”

“Right.” I felt my face flush. I had been overly preoccupied by my eagerness to hear more about him. “Thanks, Cullen. I appreciate it.”

I grabbed two sandwiches out of my bag, offering one to Sera as I sat beside her. “How are things at Dagna’s?”

She accepted the sandwich and took a large bite, avoiding my gaze guiltily. “I uh…haven’t been stayin’ at Dagna’s.”

“Why not? Did something happen?” A quiet dread started to work its way through the pit of my stomach.

“Nah. She lives with her parents, and they don’t know she’s dating an elf. A girl elf. She says they won’t mind, but I met ‘em once and they seem a lil old fashioned-y.”

The feeling of dread intensified. “You haven’t been staying at our place, have you?”

“Course not. Ya said it wasn’t safe. I’ve been crashin’ at Bull and Dorian’s. I mentioned that ya were in a bit o’ trouble and that I was lookin’ for a place to stay. They have more than enough room for me.”

“Good. I’m glad.” I was a little worried that I hadn’t really had any extended contact with Bull and I had never met Dorian, but Sera was an adult. She could make her own decisions. Well, for the most part anyway.

She shoved the last of her sandwich into her mouth. “So…yer professor.”

“Yeah.” I frowned. “It happened Friday morning. Haven’t talked to him since.”

She eyed me questioningly. “Need me to fill his office with bees?”

“Not necessary.” I paused, thinking it over. “Not necessary  _yet_. I’m going to try texting him tonight.”

“And what about…” Her gaze slid not so discreetly to where Cullen was hovering by the vending machines frowning at his phone.

“I honestly don’t know. I’m going to stop any and all inappropriate behavior until I exactly know where I stand with you know who.”

She snorted. “Good luck with that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I narrowed my eyes at her in a glare.

“Yer kinda inappropriate by nature. Ya have no filter. And that’s comin’ from  _me_.”

“You don’t think I can do it?”

“Didn’t say that.” She grabbed my water bottle off the table and took a swig.

I crossed my arms. “Well, you didn’t  _not_  say it either.”

“He keeps lookin’ over here, ya know.” She nodded vaguely in Cullen’s direction.

I still had to make sure though. “Cullen?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s sort of his job, Sera.”

“To be makin’ goo goo eyes at ya?”

“No. To be  _watching_  me. He’s not  _actually_  making goo goo eyes at me, is he?” I turned and looked at him.

He quickly looked back at his phone.

Well, that wasn’t conspicuous at all.

I put my head down on the table with a slight groan. “He said that he wants to get to know me better.”

“And? That sorta sounds like he’s into ya, Ren.”

I ignored her. “We kind of had a moment in the kitchen yesterday.”

“Wot sorta moment?”

“The almost kissing kind. It was liked a damned fucking romance novel. I had some flour on my cheek. He brushed it off…”

“Aaaand?” She prompted impatiently when I didn’t finish my sentence.

“And nothing. The oven timer went off and he ran away to his room.”

“Aww, sounds like Cully Wully’s got the hots for ya.”

“And I’m with someone else. Kind of. Sort of. Maybe.”

“So, end it with Sole-ass and climb aboard the detective train. Choo choo.”

I glared up at her. “There are so many things wrong with that sentence, that I don’t even know where to start.”

“Wot? Why?” She looked genuinely confused.

“I’m currently under the protective custody of the ‘detective train’.”

“Doesn’t mean ya can’t have fun.”

“Yes,” I insisted. “It means expressly that.”

“This is goin’ nowhere.”

I nodded. “As things generally do when we talk about my love life.”

She sighed, blowing a strand of pale blonde hair from her face with the expelled puff of air. “Ya know what I miss most about livin’ with ya?”

“Besides my company?” I was used to her abruptly changing topics.

“O’ course ‘sides that, ya tit. Yer baking.”

“Funny you should say that.” I produced a tupperware container from my backpack.

Her eyes lit up. “Cinnamon buns?”

I produced the second container. “Yup. And this one has banana muffins. Both of these are all yours.”

“I love ya. Ya know that, Ren?” She looked at me with complete adoration. It really wasn’t hard to make her happy.

I smiled back affectionately. “I had heard that somewhere, yes.”

She opened the container and pulled off a chunk of cinnamon bun, popping it in her mouth. She closed her eyes and sighed contentedly. Then she was back to business. “So, wot’re ya gonna do?”

“I don’t know. What would you do if you were me?”

“Find a nice girl and settle down.”

“I said, if you were _me_. I like men,” I reminded her.

She rolled her eyes. “And there’s yer problem.”

“Speaking as a woman, I feel like women aren’t any _less_ complicated. Any time sex and feelings are involved it’s _always messy_.”

“Then yer doing it wrong. It shouldn’t be messy.” She thought for a moment, then snickered. “Well, not that kind of messy. It should definitely be the fun kind of messy.”

“As long as I’m involved, it’s always going to be the 'not fun' kind of messy.”

“Ya can’t let one bad relationship wreck ya for anyone else. And that wasn’t even yer fault.”

“ _He_ sure as shit had no problems blaming me.” I frowned. Thinking of my ex always made me frown. At least it didn’t cause panic attacks anymore.

Sera crossed her arms. “ _He_ was fucked up. And very lucky that the police got to him before I did.”

I didn't want to talk about my ex. “Seriously though, what would you do? About _this_ whole thing.”

She sighed. “I’d ditch the teach. He’s makin’ ya crazy. And ya’ve had enough crazy for a lifetime.”

“And what about Cullen?”

“If I were ya—and into men—I’d jump on tall, blond and manly.”

I lowered my voice. “And what about the whole ‘protective custody’ thing? You think I should just ignore the fact that his primary role in my life ensuring my safety?”

“Ya worry too much.”

“You don’t worry enough.”

“That’s ‘cause ya worry enough for the both of us.”

“I worry enough for the entirety of Thedas.” I corrected.

“So, wot’re ya gonna do?” She asked again, this time a little more forcefully.

“I don’t know. I have no fucking clue. A part of me wants to try to make things work with ‘teach’—as you so eloquently called him.”

“And the rest of ya?”

I sighed. “Wants to jump on tall, blond, and manly.”

“Then do it.”

“I don’t even know if he actually likes me. He doesn’t know anything about me. And I don’t know anything about him. What if he thinks I’m boring?”

She fixed me with her ‘tough love’ look. “Have a friggin’ conversation with him instead of just starin’ at him and wonderin’ ‘what if’.”

“You just have all the answers, don’t you?”

“Isn’t that why ya called me?”

“Yeah. It is.”

“’Sides even if yer both borin’, it doesn’t mean ya can’t boink. A good no feelings attached boink would do ya some good.”

I didn’t know if I could get involved with Cullen—or anyone for that matter—without feelings attached. I sighed. “I’ll give ‘teach’ til the end of the week. Then I’m done.”

“Personally, I wouldn’t even give him give him ‘til the end of the day. But good on ya for makin’ a decision.”

 ...

I sat at the desk in my room with my textbook open, and my eyes trained on my phone. My fiery drive to get some answers from earlier was gone. Now I was just feeling vulnerable.

Professor Solas’ radio silence had spoken volumes, but I couldn’t let it go without at least  _trying_  to talk to him.

I stared at the blank text box, willing myself to find something witty to say.

Willing myself to find anything  _not pathetic_  to say. 

**[4:55 pm] Me:** Hey.  
**[5:00 pm] Me:** Sorry I missed you today. I had to run out after class to meet my roommate for lunch.

I set my phone aside and focused on my paper for my Understanding Psychopathy class.

I tried to lose myself in the paper, I really did. But I found myself checking my phone every two minutes.

I still hadn’t heard from him by 7:30 pm.

I threw my phone down on the bed in frustration.

I needed something to eat.

And I needed a distraction to keep myself from dwelling.

Cullen was sitting on the couch.

He seemed surprised to see me. “Was the TV too loud?”

“No. I just needed a break.” I grabbed a granola bar from the cupboard and settled a respectful distance away from him on the couch, legs drawn up to my chest. “What are we watching?”

“A documentary on Medieval warfare highlighting Orlesian weapons of war.”

“Sounds interesting.” I said sincerely.

He looked over at me, eyebrow raised in surprise. “Really?”

“You’re talking to a girl that studies Ancient Elvhen Science, Technology and Medicine for fun,” I replied dryly. “I enjoy old boring things.”

“You didn’t seem particularly interested in war documentaries Saturday night.”

I snorted. “Saturday night I was wasted. I had the attention span of a gnat.”

“Fair point. I can start it over if you’d like. I’m only ten minutes in.”

“Please. If you wouldn’t mind.”

Once the documentary started, it became clear that Cullen's opinions on Orlais were very  _Ferelden_. Luckily so were mine. Orlais placed far too much importance on status and appearance and not nearly enough on actually being a decent person.

"'The Grand Game'." Cullen scoffed as the documentary highlighted Orlais' less direct methods of warfare. "There’s being tactful, and there’s just being asinine. Why does everything have to be one giant façade?"

"Orlesians." I replied with a shrug as if that answered his question.

"And those masks? Ridiculous." He huffed. He was cute when he was getting all worked up about stuff. Passionate was a good look on him.

It was difficult not to grin at him. "At least they only wear them during political meetings now, and they're no longer a staple of everyday fashion."

"True."

"You know," I said casually as the scene morphed into a horribly over-dramatic reenactment of an assignation attempt. "In another life I probably could have been a bard."

"Oh?" He turned an interested look on me. "Why's that?"

"Well, I can sing and dance passably well. I'm deceptively cute. And lurking under this unassuming good girl facade is someone who can throw knives like nobody's business."

"Knives?" He asked skeptically.

I enjoyed the accompanying look of surprise a little too much. "Yeah. I've dabbled in axes too. But those are  _significantly_  heavier."

His eyebrows drew together in a look of concern. "You've fought with weapons?"

"Heavens no. That would be ridiculous. This was purely for fun. Sera's foster mother was one of those rich types who believed that every young girl should have a hobby. She hoped that Sera would take up still life painting, or needlepoint, or something equally boring. Sera chose archery. Her foster mother was appropriately scandalized. And Sera wouldn't rest until we found a weapon I was good with too. What about you? Do you have any secret weapon talents?"

"Nothing secret, no."

"I would assume that you're decent with a gun." I prompted.

He snorted. "I was top of my marksmanship class."

"So...you're decent then?" I teased.

"Yes. I am  _decent_." He replied dryly.

As much as I wanted to, I had to resist the urge to resist the urge to ask him to show me sometime. After all of this was over, there was a very good chance that I would never see him again. That thought broke my heart more than it really should have.

The documentary had some throw-away line about 'ham that tasted of despair', and our focus shifted to the topic of Orlesian food.

"It's called 'exquisite misery'. They're these tiny little cakes," I brought my fingers roughly two inches apart to illustrate the size, "made with deep mushroom and anise."

He looked appropriately appalled. "Who thinks to combine  _deep mushroom and anise_  and in a _cake_ no less?"

"Someone with no taste buds."

He shook his head, a slow smile spreading across his face. "First that abominable vodka dish, now this. Why do you have a seemingly encyclopaedic knowledge of horrible food?"

"Sera dated a self-proclaimed 'chef' for a few months. She was terrible. At cooking. And just like in general."

"So you've actually  _tried_  these horrifying excuses for food?" He looked like he might be questioning my sanity.

I held up my hands. "In my defense, I thought that the 'exquisite misery' was a brownie. It was left on the kitchen counter unlabelled, and was most definitely not a brownie."

"That  _is_  terrible." He laughed.

I stuck out my tongue. "I'm glad my past misfortune amuses you."

“What about the pasta alla vodka?”

“That one I actually did try on purpose. I was sixteen and I would have taken any opportunity I could get to have something with liquor in it.”

“And?”

“And she put in four times the amount of vodka that the recipe called for. And she didn’t cook it properly. She dumped it directly into the tomato-cream sauce. So Sera and I got sort of sauced on sauce.”

“And Sera’s girlfriend?”

“Didn’t have any. Like I said. She was terrible.”

He still looked amused. "If she was so terrible, why was Sera with her for that long?"

"Well, I would assume that it was because she was  _not terrible_  in other ways." I said with an exaggerated wink.

"What—ah." Realization dawned on his face, and a blush crept across his cheeks. "You mean..."

I giggled. "Yup. That was my tactful way of saying that they couldn't keep their hands off one another."

It had been a long time since I had had such a pleasant conversation—or any lengthy conversation really—with someone that wasn't Sera. Cullen was easy to talk to. And if I focused hard enough, I could almost forget the fact that I was attracted to him.

...

I woke up with Cullen’s arm around my shoulders and my face pressed into the crook of his neck, my own arm was thrown casually over his stomach.

He smelled good.

Really good.

Clean and masculine, with an undercurrent of something earthy, leathery.

I looked down at my watch, then rubbed my hand over my eyes.

1:21 am.

Gross.

I had class in a few hours.

Would it really be so bad for me to stay on that couch, tucked safely to his side?

I settled back against him.

He was warm.

And his skin felt nice against mine.

And he smelled  _really_  good.

And I wanted to kiss him.

Did he taste as good as he smelled?

What would he do if I crawled onto his lap and kissed him?

Would he kiss me back?

How would his mouth feel on mine?

Would he use his tongue?

I stopped myself from abruptly jerking away from him.

Those were definitely things that I couldn't allow myself to be thinking. Not right now.

I slid out from under his arm carefully, holding my breath.

When he didn't stir, I stood and tiptoed silently to my room.

We had had a perfectly nice evening devoid of any awkward touching, full of perfectly pleasant—and conveniently distracting—conversation, and my stupid brain had to ruin it by wanting more.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

Why was I such a fucking mess?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	10. Self-defense

My self-imposed deadline was fast approaching.

It was Friday morning, officially Professor Solas’ last chance to treat me like I mattered as a person.

Things weren’t looking too good in that department though.

It had been a full week since he had acknowledged my existence.

He hadn’t so much as glanced at me.

I had tried talking to him after class.

He was always the first one out of the classroom.

I had tried texting him in the evenings.

I never received a response.

There was only so much I could do without feeling like a crazy stalker.

Sure, the sex had been good, but I needed it to mean something.

And, obviously it hadn’t.

It left me feeling empty and used. Much like I had for nearly the entirety of my relationship with my ex. And those weren't feelings that I particularly wanted to cling to.

If I was being honest with myself, I wasn’t sure that I even wanted him to acknowledge me anymore anyway.

Because of Cullen.

Or, more specifically because of my potential, maybe more than platonic feelings towards him.

I had crossed a line in my mind that I couldn’t uncross.

My traitorous brain kept imagining him pushing me up against every available piece of furniture in the apartment and fucking me senseless.

And when it wasn’t doing that, it kept imagining how good we would be together in general. He was easy to talk to. And he made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

So naturally, being the disaster that I was, I had been avoiding him since I woke up with him on the couch, spending all of my time in my bedroom pretending to study when in actuality I was freaking out about the entire fucked up state of my life to Sera through text.

 **[6:51 am] Me:** Would it be socially acceptable for me to not attend his class for the remainder of the semester?  
**[6:53 am] Ser Bear <3:** ugh. its too early for this shite. its been a week since he stuck his salami in ur cave of wonders ya? tell him its over. ur done playin games.  
**[6:54 am] Me:** I’m ending it today. Just like I said I would.  
**[6:54 am] Me:** Any advice on how I should do it?  
**[6:55 am] Ser Bear <3:** send him a pic of ur tits and then tell him to fuck off.

That was one way to get his attention. I snorted as I rolled out of bed.

I had to figure out how I was _actually_ going to end things with Professor Solas when he wouldn’t even spare me a moment to respond to a fucking text. I didn’t want to leave anything open to interpretation. I needed to make sure that I broke things off in a very clear and definitive way. The adult thing to do would be to talk to him in person.

I hated being an adult.

Maybe there was something to Sera’s suggestion after all.

I shook my head.

No.

That was _not_ a good idea.

I needed coffee if I was going to make it through the day.

Cullen was already sitting at the kitchen table.

I gave him a polite nod.

He returned it.

If he had noticed my glaringly obvious distance the past few days, he hadn’t mentioned anything.

My phone buzzed as I poured myself a cup of coffee. I had been hoping for some more sage advice from Sera. Unfortunately it was an email from my Police Psychology professor.

I frowned as I read it. “Creators fucking damn it.”

“What’s wrong?” Cullen asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

“My morning class has been cancelled. Ugh. I guess it’s back to studying.” I gulped down my coffee, turning back towards my room.

“You’ve been studying a lot this week…I may…” He hesitated slightly, drawing my attention. “I may have a suggestion for an alternative way to spent the morning—if you wanted to take a break that is.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Well, you’ve been in protective custody for a little over a week now. I was thinking that it might be of benefit to you if I were to teach you some basic self-defense moves. If you’re interested of course.”

Instead of thinking it over rationally and making a calculated decision about what exactly self-defense lessons would entail, I shrugged and said, “Sure.”

A small smile tugged at his lips. “Excellent. Gather your things and we’ll get going.”

I set my coffee cup down on the counter, ignoring the fluttering in my stomach. “Where are we going and what things do I need, exactly?”

“We are going to the first floor.”

“And what’s on the first floor?”

“The gym.”

I crossed my arms, giving him a mock glare. “You mean to tell me that there’s been a gym three floors below me this entire time?”

He shrugged, unaffected by my fake ire. “You can’t enter without me.”

I uncrossed my arms. “Still. I’ve been going kind of stir crazy up here. It might have been nice to go down and blow off some steam.”

“I’m offering you the chance to do that now.” His eye contact lingered a little longer than it normally would.

Was that—was he flirting?

Oh, boy.

No, he wasn’t blushing or stammering so he couldn’t be flirting.

Still, blowing off steam with him was probably a bad idea. But I couldn’t exactly back out now without putting my foot in my mouth.

“You’ll need workout attire,” he continued. “There are showers there. You may wish to bring a change of clothes.”

I went back to my room and changed out of the clothes I had put on for class and packed them into my gym bag.

I really hadn’t thought this through very well.

Self-defense meant being in close quarters with him.

Not an ideal method of avoidance.

Which meant I should probably be clothed from head to toe.

I settled on sweats and a baggy t-shirt, both of which obscured my form.

There was no way he would get the wrong idea from that.

I slung my gym bag over my shoulder and went to wait for Cullen by the door.

He emerged from his room a moment later, similarly attired, but his clothes actually fit him, accentuating his figure instead of making him look homeless like I did.

I followed him out into the hall and to the elevator.

He pressed the button for the first floor.

We rode the elevator in silence.

The doors opened directly into a room filled with various work out equipment. There were two doors on the other side of the room, across from the elevator. One said ‘Men’ the other said ‘Women’. If the labels were anything to go by, they were the locker rooms.

That meant that there was no street access to the building, at least not from the main floor. The underground parkade appeared to be the only way in.

“There’s no front door?” I asked, looking around the room questioningly.

He shook his head. “No. This is a secure facility.”

“What sort of ‘facility’, exactly?”

“Police owned. It’s a storage facility of sorts for Police assets.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Am I a Police asset?”

“You have the potential to be.” He replied honestly. “It’s also a safe house, as I said when I first brought you here.”

Cullen gave me a quick tour of the gym, then led me over to the corner with the practice mats.

Without warning, he lunged at me.

I grabbed his arm, spun so that my back was against his chest, and used his momentum to flip him over my shoulder.

“Maker’s breath!” He exclaimed as he hit the mat, landing flat on his back.

I stifled a giggle and peered down at him. “You okay there, Detective?”

He let out a little huff of breath. “I must admit I was not expecting that.”

I reached down and offered a hand to help him up.

He took my hand and stood, dropping it immediately once he was firmly on his feet. One corner of his mouth tugged up into a devastatingly handsome half smile. “I suspect you’ve done this before.”

I once again ignored the things that his lips did to my insides. “You suspect correctly. Sera and I took a self defense class when we moved out on our own.”

He rubbed at his shoulder with a slight wince. “Why didn’t you say something?”

I shrugged. “Because I thought that this would be more fun.”

“For you.” He qualified.

“Of course for me,” I snorted.

“All right then, Renna. Would you care to demonstrate your skills?” There was a friendly challenge in his voice.

There was nothing wrong with some friendly sparring, right?

I swept his legs out from under him, using his surprise to gain the upper hand.

He was bigger than me.

And stronger than me.

I may have been significantly smaller than him, but I was faster, and I knew how to use his strength and size against him.

It started out serious, me avoiding his grapples and trying to knock him off his feet again. But it devolved into something that was almost playful, like the wrestling I had done with Sera growing up.

He wasn’t Sera though.

He was an adult male.

With adult male parts.

The progression was natural.

I didn’t even notice what was happening until after it had already happened.

One minute I was evading his grasp, the next I was a sweaty, panting, giggling mess straddling his hips with something decidedly hard—and intriguingly large—poking into my backside.

I really didn’t mind.

Each deep breath drawn through my lips rocked my hips slightly back against his rather impressive erection.

I had leaned closer to his face without even realizing it.

And that urge from the night on the couch was back.

I wanted to kiss him more than I wanted to breathe.

“Renna?” The laughter in his eyes had given way to something soft, tender. His gaze was questioning as his hand reached up to touch my cheek.

What the fuck was I doing?

I shot up off of him as if I had been electrocuted. Mumbling something about taking a shower.

I made my way into the locker room, shutting the door more forcefully than strictly necessary as I slumped back against it.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

Why had I agreed to self-defense lessons?

Especially when I knew very well that I didn’t need them.

I could have easily told him that I already knew how to take care of myself.

But no, I had to show off.

I had to see that little sparkle he got in his eye when I said or did something that caught him by surprise.

I had to see him smile.

Creators did I ever want to kiss that scar on his lip.

And run my hands down his perfectly sculpted muscles.

And feel all of him pressed tightly against all of me without any clothing between us.

A cold shower.

I needed a cold fucking shower.

Before things could go any further with Cullen, I needed to end things with Professor Solas.

I needed to end things with him _anyway_ for my own sanity.

It was stupid to even think about getting involved with Cullen anyway.

He was just doing his job.

For all I knew, he had been about to ask me to get off of him and I was reading into things that weren’t really there.

Was he even into me?

Or had I been imagining all of the lingering looks and the excuses he made to touch me?

Did the fact that I had made him hard mean anything? Or was it just a natural response to having someone rub up against him?

Oh, Creators.

Now I was imagining rubbing up against him.

I definitely needed a cold shower.

When I exited the locker room, Cullen was leaning against the wall waiting for me. He was staring off into the distance, gaze unfocused, a slight frown pulling at his lips. He had taken a shower too if his damp hair was anything to go by.

The locker room door closed with a slight bang and he turned to look at me.

“I—“ I started, but he cut me off.

“I apologize if I’ve made you uncomfortable, Miss Lavellan.” He was the picture of composed politeness.

So I was back to ‘Miss Lavellan’. Not that I blamed him. My inadvertent spooked rabbit impression had probably spoken volumes to him.

I still felt like I owed him an explanation, not that I was particularly sure how I would explain my situation. “It’s not that I’m not inter—I’m just…I’m kind of, sort of, a little bit…seeing someone at the moment.”

“Ah.” His features softened in momentary surprise before the polite mask slipped back into place. “You didn’t mention—Not that you were obligated—I apologize.”

“I should be apologizing to you. I’m sorry if my actions and words in the past week have given you the wrong idea, Detective Rutherford.” I needed to nip the familiarity in the bud until things were officially ended. It wasn’t fair to Cullen _or_ Professor Solas, even if the latter was being a dickbag. “I can see how my flirting could be…misinterpreted…things haven’t exactly been ideal between him and I, and—not that _that’s_ any excuse for my behav—I just—Fuck. I’m so sorry.” I wanted to crawl back upstairs and hide in my room.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” His tone was polite, but I could tell that he was a million miles away.

“But I do. I—When I started flirting with you, I—I didn’t expect to like you this much.” I said quietly staring at the floor. “You must think I’m fucking awful.”

“We should get going. You don’t want to be late for class.” His voice sounded distant.

I nodded and followed him wordlessly to the elevator, keeping my eyes firmly on my feet.

...

I sat in my usual seat at the back of Professor Solas’ classroom.

This was it.

One last attempt to contact him.

Maybe he hadn’t been getting my messages?

I pulled out my phone discreetly.

Not that he was paying any sort of attention to me anyway.

 **[11:28 am] Me:** Hey.

At the front of the class Professor Solas’ phone dinged.

“I apologize, everyone.” He pulled out his phone and looked at it. He spared me the first bit of eye contact he had given me in a week before putting his phone on silent and placing it back in his pocket.

My plan had been to corner him after class and let him know that I was done taking his bullshit.

But seeing the dismissive look in his eyes had pissed me off.

And I made stupid decisions when I was pissed.

 **[11:28 am] Me:** I guess now I know that you’ve been seeing my messages.  
**[11:29 am] Me:** Do I have to send you another nude to get an actual response from you?

I decided to take Sera’s advice after all.

I cued up a close up picture of my tits in a fairly see through lacy, black, bra.

My stupid ass knew better.

 **[11:29 am] Me:** [IMAGE ATTACHED]  
**[11:29 am] Me:** Go fuck yourself.

My stupid ass did it anyway.

Not my most mature or rational decision, but I was pissed.

In all other facets of my life I tried to make thoughtful choices.

Why, oh why did that not extend to my romantic life?

I had rationalized it to myself as showing him exactly what he was missing, but it just made me feel empty and shitty.

At the end of the period, I left the class without speaking to him, not that he tried to stop me anyway.

I nearly barreled into Cullen in my haste to get out of the classroom.

He placed a steadying hand on my shoulder. “Is something the matter?”

I sighed, not so discreetly shrugging out from under his hand. “Oh, I just did something stupid. That’s all. Nothing new there, really. Come on. It’s lunch time.”

As we neared the cafeteria, a hand snaked out and pulled me into a shadowed alcove. Suddenly I was pressed against a vaguely familiar chest.

Before I had the chance to warn him that I wasn’t alone, Professor Solas brought his lips down hungrily on mine.

I felt absolutely nothing. No electric spark. No tingles across my skin. Nothing except a numbness spreading through my body.

“Renna, what—“ Cullen stopped dead, staring between the two of us in wordless shock.

I took a step away from Professor Solas with my arms raised; ready to defuse what I was certain would be a ‘situation’.

As I moved away, Cullen wound up and decked Professor Solas right on the jaw.

I knew how strong Cullen was from our slightly—read: _incredibly_ —inappropriate sparring. To his credit, Professor Solas stood his ground and barely winced. He knew how to take a punch.

“Professor, are you all right?” I asked.

A look passed over his features that I had never seen there before. Something dangerous. Feral. It was gone as quickly as it had surfaced, making me wonder if maybe I had imagined it.

“I am fine, Miss Lavellan.” He replied curtly.

“May I speak with you in your office in two minutes? Please?” My tone bordered on begging, but I didn't particularly care.

“Certainly.” His voice was crisp, all business.

Fuck.

Oh, things were very much fucked up.

Not that they had been particularly great prior to that interaction.

This wasn’t exactly how I had wanted to end things.

I had had a plan.

And sending that stupid picture had derailed it.

Fuck.

Once he had disappeared down the hall I turned to Cullen.

“This is who you’re seeing? _Him_?” He asked incredulously.

“Cullen, what the actual fuck?” I hissed.

“He’s your teacher. It’s—“

“Not really any of your business?” I supplied, crossing my arms, trying to keep my shit together. Inside I was freaking the fuck out. I didn’t have the moral high ground here. I had flirted with him after I had fucked my teacher. It was one thing to hear about it, it was another thing entirely to witness proof of it.

This was so far from how I had wanted things to go.

“I—“ The fight visibly drained from him. “You’re right. I apologize. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“What _were_ you thinking?”

“I thought that someone had attempted to grab you.”

Oh.

Right.

I was in protective custody.

I had just disappeared from the sight of the detective watching me, only to be found with some man’s tongue down my throat in a dark alcove.

“Fuck. Fuck.” I ran my hands down my face in frustration. “I need to go talk to him. And you need to be far away when that happens.”

He gave a resigned sigh. “I shall wait for you in the cafeteria.”

My internal monologue the entire way back to Professor Solas’ classroom was just a litany of ‘fucks’.

He was waiting in his office. I winced, as I noted the bruise forming low on his jaw.

I had half expected him to fuck off and ignore my request to speak with him. “How’s your face, Professor?”

“Do you go anywhere without your bodyguard?” He asked with a clipped tone, ignoring my question.

“What does it matter to you who I hang out with?” I challenged.

“So you admit to knowing him then.”

“I do now.” I shrugged, crossing my arms. “We have a couple classes together.”

“Hm.” Was all he said.

I didn’t appreciate the tone. And I didn’t appreciate the attitude I was getting from him. Yes, he had been punched rather spectacularly in the face, but he had definitely deserved it.

“Well?” He said impatiently. “What did you wish to discuss?”

I didn’t want to play games. It was time to end this. I knew exactly what I had to do, but that didn't make it any less difficult to find the words. “You.”

“Me?” He gave me an unimpressed look, brow arched.

“Yes, you. And our ‘relationship’ or however the fuck you want to label it.”

“Well?” He prompted.

“Well, you said that you cared about me, yet you couldn’t be bothered to respond to any of my messages.”

He shrugged disinterestedly. “I’ve been otherwise occupied.”

“Meaning?”

His eyebrow was still raised in that infuriatingly condescending way. “I never claimed that our relationship was exclusive.”

That stung a little. “So, you’re telling me that you ignored me because you were too busy fucking other people?”

He had the nerve to look bored.

“If this was just about sex for you, you could have said so. And I would have respectfully declined ever getting involved with you. I’m not interested in some physical fling. I need more out of a relationship. I’m not content to just stand by and wait until you get horny again. You ignored me for _an entire week_ then grabbed me like some sex-starved teenager. It’s not okay to treat people like that. I’m done.” It all came out in a rush.

He nodded, a neutral expression on his face. “As you wish, Miss Lavellan.”

“That’s it?” I didn’t want to be with him in the slightest anymore, but it still would have been nice to feel like I was wanted. Some miniscule part of me had secretly been hoping for a little more fight. Some sign that I had actually meant something to him, a hint of the man who had tenderly confessed to having feelings for me.

His eyebrow arched again. “I’m not playing games here, Miss Lavellan. I am an adult, and I had assumed that you were too.”

I stared at him disbelievingly. The man before me was so far removed from the charming façade he projected in front of the classroom. How many other girls had fallen for his bullshit mild-mannered teacher act?

“All right then. I guess that’s that.” I turned to leave.

His voice stopped me. “Don’t worry, this _relationship_ won’t in any way affect your standing in this classroom.”

I hadn’t been worrying about those particular potential repercussions of fucking him until he said something. If he was lying, that would be fun to explain to my caseworker on the scholarship board.

I left his office wordlessly.

I met back up with Cullen in the cafeteria. Something in my face must have told him not to start with me, because he kept a respectful—and silent—distance. Or maybe it was because I totally and completely disgusted him now.

I managed to numbly hold all of my feelings of self-loathing in for the rest of the afternoon, but the moment we walked through the apartment door, the dam broke.

Tears slid down my face.

I made it was far as the kitchen table before I started ugly crying.

Professor Solas hadn’t cared about me at all.

Not only had I fucked up my academic career for sex, I had also ruined my chances with Cullen.

It didn’t matter that I had ended things with Professor Solas.

How could Cullen look at me without thinking about the fact that he had literally seen me with another man’s tongue in my mouth?

I was sloppy seconds.

Why would he want anything to do with me now?

Cullen hovered tentatively by the table. “Are you all right?”

“No.” I sniffled.

“What—“ He hesitated. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

I looked over just in time to see him raise his hand to touch my shoulder, then drop it as he thought better of it. He didn’t even want to touch me.

I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach as I shook my head. “No. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right.” He nodded somewhat helplessly. “Can I get you anything?”

“Sera.” I whimpered. I didn’t deserve his kindness. It was like a stab in my chest.

A look of pity crossed his face, twisting the knife. “I can’t bring Sera here. You know that.”

“I—“ My phone started ringing. I looked down at my phone, then back up at Cullen, wiping the tears from my cheeks. “It’s Sera.”

“I’ll give you some privacy.” He started towards the front door.

“Speak of the devil. Hey. I’ve fucked everything up.” My voice was thick with tears.

“Yes. You have.” That wasn’t Sera’s voice. I knew it though. It was a low growl that brought to mind images of a snarling mask over scarred skin.

My blood ran cold. “Corypheus?”

He gave a cold, humorless chuckle. “So you know who I am. That makes this much easier.”

“What have you done with Sera?” My voice sounded wooden, hollow. Oh, Creators. If something had happened to her, I would never forgive myself. I glanced up, eyes wide and searching for Cullen.

He had paused at the door, his own eyes questioning as if he wasn’t sure that he had heard me correctly.

I gestured wildly for him to come back.

“I have done nothing. Yet. No harm will befall your precious roommate so long as you follow my instructions carefully.”

“How do I know she’s all right?”

“I have sent you proof.” He replied impatiently.

As if on cue, my phone dinged. I took it away from my ear and opened the image. Sera was bloodied, unconscious, bound, and gagged on some dirty looking floor in a dimly lit room.

I brought the phone back to my ear, barely breathing. “What do you want?”

“I wish to propose a trade. My interest lies solely with you. I will free her if you take her place.”

“Yes.” I didn’t even hesitate. It was my fault that she was there. I would do anything to get her back safe.

“You will leave your cell phone wherever it is that you’re hiding. You are to tell no one where you are going. If you involve the Police in any way, I will not hesitate to end her life. Are we clear?”

“Yes.” I breathed.

“Good. This is where I will meet you.” He proceeded to rattle off an address and a time.

‘Pen’, I mouthed frantically to Cullen while miming writing.

He produced his notepad and a pen.

I frantically scribbled out the address as the line went dead.

I stared at the page in quiet horror.

“Did I hear you right? Was that actually Corypheus?”

I nodded numbly. “It was Corypheus. He has Sera.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoooa!  
> We're halfway theeeere!  
> Whooo~ooooa!  
> At least until I completely ignore my outline and add more surprise chapt~eeers.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	11. Plans

I had been so caught up with my love life, that I had forgotten the very _real_ danger I was in.

There were frankly terrifying people after me.

I had put Sera in _actual_ danger.

She was my family.

She was all I had left.

My blood relatives didn’t give a shit about me.

The men in my life all eventually grew either distant or abusive. Or both.

She was the one constant in my life.

I needed her to be safe.

I should have insisted that she come to the safe house with me.

This was all my fault. If something happened to her, I could only blame myself.

“Renna.” Cullen said, snapping his fingers in front of my face as if he had been trying to get my attention for some time.

“Fuck.”

Corypheus had Sera.

I had to save her.

I had to—

I had to _do_ something.

I rose from the table and grabbed my jacket, shrugging it over my shoulders quickly.

I would always rush in and save her.

She wouldn’t do any less for me.

It had nothing to do with the fact that I felt like I had nothing to lose, at least that’s what I told myself.

The address Corypheus had given was downtown.

I had half an hour to get there.

I was sure I could make it on foot.

I just needed to figure out two things: where the fuck I was and more importantly, how the fuck to get out of the building.

I got approximately three paces from the door, then Cullen stepped in front of me.

I blinked up at him.

Where had he come from?

I had left him by the table.

Creators, he moved quietly for someone his size.

“Renna, what are you doing?”

I pushed past him, trying to keep from hyperventilating. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if I started having a full-blown panic attack. “Corypheus has Sera. He’s going to kill her if I don’t—”

He put his hand on the door over my shoulder, barring me from leaving. “Renna—“

I spun and glared up at him angrily, ignoring the fact that I was practically pressed up against him. “I’m not going to stand around and let her get killed because of something I did. If something—“

“What does Corypheus want?” He asked calmly.

“Let me leave, Cullen.” I growled.

“What does Corypheus want?” He repeated slowly.

“Me. He wants me.” I tried removing his arm from the door.

He didn’t budge an inch. “Tell me exactly what he said.”

I suspected that I could let my entire body weight hang from his arm and it still wouldn’t budge. He had made it clear that I wasn’t getting out of the apartment unless he allowed me to. I crossed my arms, giving him my best death glare as I repeated my conversation with Corypheus verbatim.

“Show me the picture he sent you.”

I showed him the picture.

He scanned it quickly, expression turning somber, before he nodded. “All right, now what are we going to do?”

“ _We_?” I asked skeptically. I hadn’t expected him to want to be included in any part of my little kamikaze drug lord filled adventure.

“Yes, _we_. In case you’ve forgotten, it is my job to ensure your safety.”

Ah.

Right.

He didn’t _want_ to be a part of this. He _had_ to. It was his job. I pushed those feelings of mild rejection aside as best I could.

“So, what is your plan?” He asked.

“I meet Corypheus. He takes me. He lets Sera go.”

“And then?” He prompted.

“And then nothing. That’s it.”

He crossed his arms, lips tugging down in a disapproving frown. “That’s not a very good plan.”

“Well, it’s all that I’ve got. It’s my fault that Sera is in this fucking mess. It’s my responsibility to get her out.”

“At the expense of your own freedom?”

“Yes.”

He uncrossed his arms. “Try to come up with something a little less self-destructive. I will return shortly.”

“What the fuck? Where the fuck are you going? There’s no time to—“

He put his hands on my shoulders gently guiding me away from the door. “I’ll be gone ten minutes at the most.”

In my absolute confusion over what the fuck was happening, I allowed him to move me. “I have to go _now_ , Cullen. I’ve already wasted five minutes I don’t have. I can’t spare another ten.”

We had effectively switched places. He stopped with his hand on the door, turning back to face me. “Do you trust me?”

“What does that have to—“

“Do you trust me?” He asked again, his voice quietly insistent, his face as serious as I had ever seen it.

I didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Of course I do.”

“Then wait here.”

“What? Cullen—“

He shut the door behind himself as he left.

I heard the sound of the lock sliding into place.

I tried the handle.

It didn’t budge.

I couldn’t unlock the door from the inside.

I was locked in.

The fucker had locked me in.

I had never once been given the impression that I was being imprisoned in the apartment. I was there voluntarily, so there was no need to lock me in. I had stupidly operated under the assumption that I was free to go whenever I pleased.

Apparently I had been wrong.

Cullen returned exactly seven agonizing minutes later with a small black gear bag.

I crossed my arms, glaring daggers at him. “You fucking asshole! You locked me in!”

He moved around me to put the bag on the kitchen counter, then he started fussing with the contents. He either didn’t notice my anger or he just plain didn’t care. “I didn’t want you to get any ideas about rushing off on your own. Did you come up with any sort of plan?”

I had spent the entire time he was absent mentally cursing him. “No—“

“Then we’ll be going with my plan. Show me the picture again.”

“What plan? We don’t have time for this, Cullen! I have to—“

His jaw clenched as he met my glare and the warm honey of his eyes hardened, as did his voice. “We need to come up with a plan. I’ll not have you charging off half-cocked.”

It was the closest to actual anger that I had ever seen him. It was terrifying and—if I was being honest with myself—more than a little hot. I shut my mouth and gave him back my phone wordlessly.

He took a deep breath, letting some of the tension fall from his shoulders. “I know this might be difficult for you, but I need you to take another look at the photo. Do you recognize that room?”

I did as he asked, looking past Sera’s prone body to the filthy room behind her. “No. I’ve never seen it before.”

“All right then. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’ll drop you off two blocks away from the address Corypheus gave you. You will go the remainder of the way on foot.” His calm was simultaneously irritating and soothing.

I shook my head sharply as I processed his words. “Corypheus said no cops. Technically just involving you this far has broken the rules. If they see you, they’ll kill her.”

“They won’t see me.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I have a way to blend in.” He pulled a jacket and cap out of the bag, both had large pizza delivery logos splashed across them.

“A pizza delivery guy? That’s your disguise?” I asked skeptically.

“Yes.”

“You’re the expert, I guess,” I muttered.

“Would you be comfortable with wearing a recording device?”

My brain was being pulled in so many different directions I was going to get whiplash. “A recording device? Why?”

“Because if you’re going to go off into danger with no regard for your safety anyway, I would prefer to make sure that we gather all of the information that we can.”

“What if they find it?”

“I promise you that they won’t.” He pulled something out of the bag, a small case, no larger than a cigarette lighter. He opened it. “This is the recording device.”

Inside the box was a small circular disc no larger than my thumb nail, it had two wires sticking out attached to a tiny box that was even smaller than the disc.

“This is the microphone.” He pointed to the disc. “And this is the transmitter.” He pointed to the tiny little black box.

“That’s…very small.”

He nodded. “As I said, they won’t find this.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” he said patiently. “Now, stop questioning every little thing I say, Renna. You’re the one who was worried about our time constraints.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“Do you consent to wearing the recording device?”

It was a very formal way to ask, but I assumed that he needed actual voiced consent in order for me to wear it.

“Yes. I consent to wearing the recording device.”

He nodded. “This might be slightly uncomfortable for you, but the best place for you to conceal it would be between your breasts.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay.”

“I’ll need you to lift your shirt.” He looked at me levelly, as if trying to gauge my comfort with the idea. He didn’t blush. He didn’t stammer.

I could only assume that meant that he was well and truly over any sort of attraction that he might have had for me.

The bottom dropped out of my stomach once again.

I bit the inside of my lip hard, forcing myself to focus.

I needed to get my head on straight.

Sera was depending on me.

If I didn’t focus, there was a fairly decent chance that we would both end up dead.

I could wallow in my self-pity when all of this was over and we were both safe at home.

Realizing he was waiting for me to respond in some way, I nodded.

He produced a roll of medical grade tape from the bag.

I tried to peer over the lip of the bag to examine the contents. “What else have you got in there?”

“Guns and ammunition.”

“Oh. Are you expecting trouble?” I joked lamely.

He met my eyes, a serious expression on his face. “Yes.”

“Oh.” I said again, looking away.

He caught my chin in his hand, forcing me to look into his eyes. He was staring at me with a burning intensity. “I want to make sure that you fully understand the gravity of this situation. These men will be armed. They have killed people for far less than you have cost them. If I thought there were any other way to get Sera back safe, I wouldn’t allow you to leave this apartment. As it sits, this may be the only opportunity that we have to get any sort of evidence against Corypheus, and Cassandra would have my head if I didn’t take this chance.”

“I’m not taking any of this lightly, Cullen,” I said quietly, staring at his chest. Electricity crackled across my skin radiating out from where his hand touched my face. “I’ve seen them straight up murder someone, in case you’ve forgotten. I am terrified, and I say stupid shit when I’m scared.”

“You don’t have to do this,” he said quietly, his hand still on my chin.

I looked back up into his eyes, meeting his intensity with my own. “Yes, I do.”

He cleared his throat, letting his hand drop. “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” I stared at a spot over his shoulder as I removed my jacket and lifted the hem of my t-shirt up to my collarbone, exposing my torso and bra.

“You’ll need to hold your bra out of the way.”

“I can just remove it altogether if that’s easier.” Had I just offered to whip my bra off in front of him? Creators my brain was a fucking mess.

He hesitated. “The microphone will be significantly harder to detect if it’s hidden beneath a snug-fitting layer of clothes.”

I nodded, shrugging my t-shirt over my arms and letting it hang around my neck. Then I undid the front closure of my inappropriately lacy bralette, holding each side firmly over my breasts so I didn’t accidentally flash Cullen.

He knelt on the floor in front of me.

He secured the recording device to my chest with three small strips of tape.

It was all very clinical, professional.

I didn’t even have it in me to make a joke.

He cleared his throat and stood, turning away from me. “We should go.”

“Right.” I slid my clothes back into place, throwing my jacket back on.

I couldn’t help but notice that he had gotten up close and personal with my breasts without so much as a tinge of red coloring his cheeks.

He quickly put on his ‘disguise’, grabbing the gear bag off the counter.

We went down to the parkade.

He led me to a car that definitely wasn’t his.

This one was silver and non-descript. I had literally seen hundreds just like it in the past week alone.

We didn’t exit the parkade at the same exit we normally took.

He had taken complete and total control of the situation and kept me from spiraling.

It was scary how good he was at this.

We drove for a few blocks before he spoke again. “Just so that you are prepared, they will most likely transport you to another location. I find it hard to believe that they would conduct their business in such a densely populated area.”

“They murdered Divine Justinia at a densely populated night club.” I reminded him. “I don’t think that they care all that much about where they ‘conduct their business’.”

“Fair point.” He pulled over to the side of the road.

This was it. We were two blocks north of the address I had been given.

I held my phone out to Cullen. “For safe keeping. If something happens to me—”

He kept his eyes forward, staring straight through the windshield with an unreadable look on his face. His grip on the steering wheel tightened a fraction, then he released it entirely, taking my phone from my hand. “Nothing will happen to you. I promise. Both you and Sera will be home before you know it.”

“What if they find the wire?” I asked again.

“They won’t.” He turned to look at me.

I bit my lip, staring at the center console. “What if you lose track of me?”

He caught my face in his hand, tucking my hair behind my ear. “I won’t.”

I couldn’t meet his gaze. I was afraid of what I would—or rather wouldn’t—see in his eyes.

His hand was warm against my cheek, the calluses on his palm pleasantly rough against my skin.

Creators, I wanted to kiss him.

This might be my last chance.

But I couldn’t.

He seemed stressed out enough without adding _that_ bullshit to the things he was worrying about.

“Renna, I…” His thumb grazed gently across my cheek. “There’s something…”

He was hesitating.

Why was he hesitating?

I forced myself to look up into his eyes and immediately wished that I hadn’t.

He looked…

Creators, he looked distressed.

His eyebrows were drawn together in a look of concern, his lips slightly parted as if he was trying to force the words out.

“Whatever it is you can tell me later, okay?” I slid my hand over his and gently pulled it away from my face. I glanced at the clock. “It’s time for me to go play hero.”

His gaze quickly slid from concern to panic, to straight up livid. “You are to do no such thing. Promise me that you’ll not take any unnecessary risks.”

That same intensity from before was back, burning a hole straight through me. “I promise.”

“Be safe, Renna.”

“You too, Cullen.”

I exited the car and started making my way south.

For 6:00 pm on a Friday night, the streets were surprisingly dead.

Or maybe it was just the area I was in.

I realized with a start that it was _actually still Friday_. A little over an hour ago I had been at school just like I was every other Friday.

And just that morning, I had been—well, that didn’t matter.

Now I was trekking through downtown.

I had never ventured this far into downtown Haven before.

This was where the ruffians and thugs liked to hang out.

I kept my pace brisk, briefly consulting the piece of paper with the scribbled address.

If I was following the address correctly, then it should have been right around the next corner.

I rounded the corner and—

There was nothing there.

No building.

Nothing.

Just an empty lot.

Should I wait around?

Should I keep moving just in case I had the wrong place?

If I stayed where I was, I was infinitely more likely to get mugged, but if I moved around—

I heard footsteps, coming at me quickly from behind.

Before I could turn around, something came down over my face, obscuring my vision.

It was some sort of unpleasant smelling burlap sack.

“What the fu—“ I started.

“Shut up.” A voice sneered in my ear as large hands gripped both of my upper arms and lifted me clear off the ground. “Keep quiet, don’t struggle, and we won’t cut up that pretty little face of yours.”

I bit my lip to keep from responding. I focused my attention on trying to see through the smelly sack on my head. If I concentrated particularly hard, I could see shafts of light through the weave of the bag.

What was that smell?

Sweat…and fucking hell, that was stale vomit.

Apparently I didn’t rate high enough on their kidnap scale for a fresh burlap bag. Or maybe it was a scare tactic? Either way it was disgusting.

I switched to breathing through my mouth, trying to lessen the chances of adding fresh vomit to the awful cocktail of smells.

I heard a car door open and I was shoved inside the waiting vehicle. An SUV of some sort based on the height.

“Pat her down. Check her pockets. Make sure she hasn’t disobeyed the orders she was given.” The sneering voice said from the front seat. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it with 100% certainty.

I sat stock still, showing my willingness to obey their orders.

A compliant captive was a valuable captive. A valuable captive didn’t end up maimed. Usually.

Hands prodded at me, jolting me out of my amateur detective observations.

Creators, those were large hands.

He was either a Qunari, or a ridiculously over-sized human. Either way I had absolutely zero desire to see the ape of a man that those hands belonged to.

I held my breath as those large hands skimmed up my sides and over my breasts. They lingered there clearly groping and not actually searching for smuggled goods. It took everything I had to keep still and not smack them away.

The hands moved back down my body, smoothing over the tops of my thighs, before resting at my knees and roughly spreading my legs. The hands traveled slowly up the insides of my thighs, making my skin crawl.

“Well?” The sneering voice asked impatiently.

“She’s clean.” A lower, much closer voice responded from somewhere above me, hands still resting against my inner thighs.

“Then remove your hands from her before I remove them for you.” The sneering voice ordered. “ _He_ would prefer to have her unmolested in every sense of the word.”

A chuckle. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“I would be more worried about staying alive than having fun if I were you.”

“Yes, sir.” The laughter died out from the voice. The hands left my body.

I jerked my legs shut and kept my knees pressed firmly together.

It appeared that Cullen had been right.

I was being transported to another location.

We drove in tense silence. It was impossible for me to tell how long or how far we drove.

I kept completely silent the whole time.

I didn’t want to do or say anything that might impact Sera’s chances of survival.

We stopped and the car door opened, and I was shoved unceremoniously through it.

I was half carried, half dragged for a few feet, then the hood was removed, and I was alone in a dark unpleasant smelling room.

I took in a gulp of the ‘fresh’ air. It may have been unpleasant, but it was still infinitely better than the vomit sack.

“Hello?” I called tentatively into the dark emptiness. “Anyone—“

A gun pressed to my temple.

Followed by a clicking noise.

“—home?” I finished lamely.

That was a new experience for me.

Definitely one that I didn’t want to repeat.

Ever.

I put my hands up in the universal sign for surrender.

My would-be assailant came to stand in front of me, presumably so I could look him in the eyes when he murdered me to death.

Greasy black hair.

Red-rimmed eyes.

Crooked yellow teeth revealed by lips pulled back in a snarl.

Samson.

I don’t know who I had been expecting.

Some faceless, nameless goon, I supposed.

“Miss Lavellan.” He sneered. He had definitely been the one in the front seat of the vehicle. “Nice to finally see you.”

“How do you know my name?”

“We’ve got our sources. We knew to take your roommate, didn’t we?”

Touché. The mention of Sera brought my focus back to the reason I was there in the first place. “Is she all right? Let me see her. Please. I need to know that she’s—”

“You seem to be forgetting who is holding the gun here.” He tapped the gun against my temple as if to remind me. “Now, move.”

“Which way?“

He pressed the gun harder against my temple. “Left.”

“All right, I’m going.”

“You have caused quite the stir, you know.” He allowed me to get a half step ahead of him, placing the gun against the small of my back for easier steering.

“I’m sorry for being an inconvenience to your master’s drug empire.” Now was probably not the time for sarcasm, but I really couldn’t help it. I had two basic reactions to extreme stress, sarcasm/inappropriate jokes and uncontrollable sobbing. Neither were particularly helpful in any given situation, but at least sarcasm didn’t make me look like a weak ass little bitch in front of the drug dealers.

“As you should be.” He sounded almost _amused_.

Was amused a good thing?

We came to a fork in the hallway.

“Go right.”

We came to an abrupt stop. The only thing in the hall was a door.

“Through that door.”

I stalled.

I wasn’t completely helpless. This was one on one. Granted, one of us had a gun.

But I had the element of surprise.

He wouldn’t be expecting any sort of retaliation from me.

I had been obedient.

He gave another tap of the gun to encourage me to move.

I went through the door and stopped abruptly, bringing my elbow up behind me, approximately where I hoped his head to be.

I connected with the side of his face.

“Bitch.” He hissed as he cracked the gun against my face.

I crumpled to the ground, tasting blood.

Oh, that was unpleasant.

I spit.

My mouth was indeed full of blood.

“Now, now, my dear Raleigh. Is that anyway to treat our guest?” Corypheus. He sounded entertained, but that voice sent shivers down my spine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed that I've added another chapter...I'm realizing that sticking to an outline is... _difficult_ , to say the least, haha. These characters have a mind of their own, and I have no self control.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	12. Heroic

I couldn’t bring myself to look at Corypheus quite yet.

Making eye contact with him would make all of this real.

And I wanted to prolong that for as long as possible.

Pretending the bad things didn’t exist was typically how I dealt with them.

As I looked around the room, it became apparent that we were in some sort of warehouse.

Harsh fluorescent lights dangled from the impossibly high ceiling.

The room was lit far better than the halls leading up to it.

Exposed, bright yellow, pipes cluttered the walls.

A narrow, railed walkway surrounded the upper level, also painted a cheery, cautionary yellow.

Not including the door we had entered through, there were three doors located on the main floor of the room. Two of them were labeled as exits.

Odd bolt patterns covered the floor.

It looked like there might have been machinery filling the room at one point.

Right now, it was just terrifyingly vacant.

Every sound echoed in the vast emptiness of the room.

I looked back over my shoulder at Samson.

“The bitch started it.” Samson spat. I took mild satisfaction in the bruise that was already forming at his temple as he threw Corypheus an unimpressed look.

I followed his gaze and finally allowed my eyes to settle on Corypheus.

Creators, I had forgotten just how fucking tall he was.

If I were standing in front of him, I would barely come up to the bottom of his ribcage, not that I ever wanted to be close enough to him to actually compare heights.

His arms and legs were long, spindly protrusions from his skeletally slim torso. 

He was wearing an all black, tailored suit, much like he had been that night at the Divine Conclave. This time his shirt was a rich dark red, calling to mind images of the bloodshed I had witnessed the last time I had seen him.

He was wearing that same hood, loosely covering the back and sides of his head, hiding whatever damage he didn’t deem fit to show the world.

Then there was that mask.

Creators, that fucking mask.

It was as grotesque as I remembered it.

It was almost as if someone had tried to recreate what his face had originally looked like from memory, but then they realized that it would be too jarring to look at next to the scarred half of his face, so they added the scowl and some deep scoring to balance it out.

What ever he had going on under it must have been truly horrifying for him to find the grizzly thing preferable.

My skin crawled just looking at him. Something about him just felt inherently wrong.

It had nothing to do with the disfiguring scars on his face, and everything to do with the aura of menace that he projected.

“Miss Lavellan.” Corypheus greeted coldly, his deep voice booming through the room. “So good of you to _finally_ join us.” His gaze shifted to Samson. “All went smoothly I trust?”

“We were followed for a few blocks. A man in a silver car. But we lost him.”

Corypheus turned his attention back to me. “I see that you fail utterly at following directions.”

“Your men picked me up downtown. Isn’t it possible that the other car just happened to be going the same direction?” Surprisingly, the lie had come out far more confident than I felt. I wanted to wilt under his penetrating gaze. To hide. Instead, I got up, wiping at my blood-covered chin with the back of my hand. “No one followed me. I did exactly as you asked. I came here alone. I left my phone at home. I didn’t involve the Police.”

“Do not lie to me.” The functioning, non-masked half of his face looked severely displeased. “I find it difficult to believe that you went running to the Police after what you witnessed and they didn’t insist on offering you protection. You are a thing of value to them.”

I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. “What makes you think I went to the Police?”

“I have my sources.”

That potentially meant there was a leak among Cullen’s men.

Well, shit.

“So you were expecting me to fail?” My stomach dropped further as I realized the possible implications of that. “Does that mean Sera—“

“Your roommate is…" He paused. 

I could have screamed at him. If he had done something to Sera, then I really had nothing to lose. I would go down fighting. I would—

"Alive for the time being,” he continued.

“What are you planning to do to us?” I breathed an internal sigh of relief. Alive I could work with. I could keep both of us alive until Cullen showed up. How hard could it be?

“You are nothing more than a thief, taking that which does not belong to you. In the wrong place at the wrong time. If it were entirely up to me, I would kill you right now.”

That right there meant that someone higher up than Corypheus wanted me. Was that who Samson had been talking about in the car? I had to keep him talking. Maybe he would reveal something useful. “So, this entire thing goes beyond you then. Who are you working for?”

“I work _for_ _no one_ ,” he snapped. “You have the gall to imply that I am anything less than completely in charge of this operation?”

Well, shit. That was entirely the wrong thing to say to keep Sera and I alive. Why the fuck had those words come out of my mouth? “I didn’t—“

“Red lyrium was my design. I had the means to improve upon the effects of regular lyrium—to perfect it. And I did.” He looked down his nose at me, arrogance in his ‘accomplishments’ radiating from his very pores.

I stared back up at him in horror. “You’re responsible for thousands of deaths.”

“I’m responsible for tens of thousands of deaths across Thedas in the past two years alone.” He corrected, that same disgusting pride in his voice.

“And what about the Fade? Was that your doing too?”

His expression turned sour. “You dare to mention the Fade to me?”

Another misstep apparently. “You had a vial of it at the Divine Conclave. I thought—”

“It was given to me for distribution purposes. I am a businessman. Willing to entertain any idea that may prove profitable. The Fade doesn’t allow much in the way of repeat users. A drug that kills nearly every new user has no profitably for me.”

Said the man who was quite _literally_ bragging about the death toll of _his_ drug less than thirty seconds prior.

The question was, who had given it to him for distribution? I wanted to scream it at him, but I wouldn’t get any answers that way. I had another question that was slightly more important to me in that moment. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

“Because I’ve decided to kill you after all.”

Oh, fuck. That's what I had been afraid of. People like him didn't get chatty unless they were planning to dispose of the people they were getting chatty with. “You said that it wasn’t up to you. What about—“

“You were meant to be given as a token of good will, but I no longer care to have _his_ favor. _His_ involvement has proven to be more trouble than it is worth.”

No, no, no. Fuck. “What about Sera?”

“Foolish girl, I never intended to release her. You can take solace in the fact that at least her death will be quick and painless. Unlike yours." He waved his hand dismissively. "I have entertained enough of your questions.”

He advanced on me and I cried out as he grasped my left wrist in his left hand, wrenching my arm upwards. He lifted me like I weighed nothing, dangling me in front of him effortlessly. He brought me level with his face.

Creators, he was fucking terrifying up close.

His skin was scarred and puckered, creased with deep lines at odd intervals as if someone had carved them into his face.

His dark eyes were narrowed in a perpetual glare.

And that aura of menace was suffocating.

He shifted and pulled something from his belt.

My eyes followed his hand down.

In his hand was the same knife that he had used to kill Divine Justinia.

How many other lives had he taken with it?

I stared at the flat of the blade, gazing into my own wide-eyed face on the reflective surface.

His breath was hot and rank on my face, making me feel almost nostalgic for the vomit sack I had been wearing when I entered the building.

“Any last words?” He asked.

“I am not afraid of you.” By some miracle, I was able to keep the tremor out of my voice.

The unmasked corner of his mouth curled up into an awful smile as he started to raise the knife. “Words people often hurl at the darkness. They are always lies.”

“Wait!” I had to stall. I had to give Cullen more time. “Don’t I get a last request?”

He arched his brow, his expression somewhere between intrigued and straight up psychotic. “ _If_ I were to allow such a thing, what would you request?”

“I suppose it would do me no good to request that you let Sera go?” I had to try.

He looked unimpressed. “You would be correct in that assumption.”

If I was going to die, I wanted to make sure that Cullen got everything he needed. “Then, tell me _his_ name. The man behind the Fade. You’re going to kill me anyway right?”

“Yes. I am.” There was absolutely no hesitation in his voice.

I swallowed hard. “So, tell me _his_ name.”

“What purpose would that serve?”

“Fulfilling a dying girl’s wish?” I tried lamely. I couldn’t exactly tell him the truth—that I was wearing a wire and the information would be useful to the Police.

He paused, a thoughtful expression on his face, and I held my breath. “I suppose there is no harm in sating your curiosity. A small mercy I can grant you. Then you will know who to curse with your dying breath. He is known by the name—“

A loud crash echoed from the hallway.

“Go check it out.” Corypheus nodded to Samson, who was unexpectedly still in the room.

Samson did as he was told, edging cautiously through the door, gun drawn.

“So, about that name—“ I started, still suspended by the wrist in mid-air. It was starting to go from mild discomfort to actual pain.

Corypheus silenced me with a look.

Samson poked his head back through the door less than a minute later. “There’s nothing—“

His assessment was cut short by an odd clicking noise.

“Drop your weapon.” That voice—though muffled by the partially open door—was achingly familiar, even if the tone was harder than I had ever heard it.

“Oh, fuck.” Samson’s gun clattered to the floor, and he fully re-entered the room with his arms raised. Cullen followed immediately behind Samson, bending to pick up Samson’s discarded gun, while keeping his own gun pointed at the back of Samson’s head.

I had never been happier to see someone.

I wasn’t going to die here.

“Put her down.” Cullen growled at Corypheus. He looked lethal, eyes narrowed in a glare, mouth set in a grim line. I was incredibly glad that he was on my side.

Samson looked back over his shoulder at Cullen and did a double take. “You?"

“Me.” Cullen replied shortly, sparing Samson a disgusted look.

“You’re alive? How? You died of a lyrium overdose before my eyes.”

“So you were led to believe.”

“Who—“

“He is with the police.” Corypheus growled, having caught on much faster than Samson. He drew his knife down my left cheek.

I shut my eyes as I felt the bite of the blade against my face.

I knew what came next.

Next was the killing blow.

The lightning fast slash across my throat.

I _would_ be dying here after all.

I felt him draw his arm across his body.

I held my breath.

A loud sound echoed through the room.

I realized belatedly, through the ringing in my ears, that I had in fact heard a gunshot.

I opened my eyes.

The knife sliced shallowly across my chest at an angle, just deep enough to cut through my shirt and draw blood, but nowhere near deep enough to do anything more damaging.

Corypheus let out a wheezing breath, his grip on me tightening a fraction, then immediately going slack.

I fell to the ground with a thud, landing on my ass.

He followed shortly after, crumpling in a long-limbed heap.

Cullen retrained his gun on Samson, who had dropped to the floor clutching his ears. Cullen must have fired his gun directly beside Samson’s head.

“Renna, are you injured?” Cullen called.

“Nothing serious.” I had a few cuts and some bruises, but physically, I was more or less fine. My brain, however was barely functioning. I tried to process everything that had just happened, and found that I couldn't.

Cullen nodded, then cracked the butt of his gun against the back of Samson’s head.

Samson slumped to the floor, and Cullen dragged his unconscious body over to the wall. While Cullen had his attention focused on handcuffing Samson to a pipe that was protruding from the wall, I turned my attention back to Corypheus.

There was a hole right in the center of his forehead.

I stared into his unblinking eyes.

Then I poked cautiously at his face.

His skin was so warm.

But there was no reaction.

“Holy fucking shit, is he—“ I knew the answer of course. It was a stupid question. There was a fucking bullet hole in the middle of his fucking head. He was dead. Incredibly fucking dead.

Why had my first reaction been to poke a dead man in the face?

Was I that desensitized to violence?

Shit.

Fuck.

That was a dead man.

That man had been alive moments ago.

And now he was dead.

I shuffled backwards away from Corypheus’ corpse.

I turned and my stomach heaved, but nothing came up.

I could feel tears falling down my face, hot and wet, stinging the cut on my cheek.

I was shaking so hard my teeth were chattering.

A tentative hand landed on my shoulder.

I spun and came face to face with Cullen.

He was kneeling on the floor beside me. “Renna? Are you—“

I launched myself into his arms, legs going around his waist, arms going around his back, as I let out a muffled sob into his shoulder. At least my little bitch crying had waited until after the drug lords were taken care of.

He banded one arm under my thighs, and the other came across my back, keeping my body pressed to his as he stood. Not that I actually needed the extra support. My limbs had a vice-like grip around his torso.

He carried me across the room. Far away from Corypheus.

“Shh, shh. It’s going to be all right.” He soothed, as he settled back onto the floor, my body fitting comfortably in the space between his spread legs.

My arms and legs were still locked around him. I took in a shuddering breath. “He was going to—and then you—and then he—and—and—“

“Breathe, Renna. Just breathe. Everything is going to be all right.” His hand smoothed through my hair.

I rested my head against his shoulder, trying to get my breathing under control.

“Are you—“ he started.

“Shit. Are _you_ alright?” I pulled back and stared up into his eyes, scrambling off his lap and into a kneeling position. I kept my hands lightly resting on his shoulders. “You just _shot_ someone.”

He met my searching eyes with a grim expression. “I’m fine. He was going to kill you. I did what I had to do in order to protect you.”

At least my eyes had been closed, and I wouldn’t have the image of him pulling the trigger ingrained in my brain for the rest of my life.

His gaze slid down from my face, and his eyes widened. “Renna, your chest is bleeding. You said you weren’t injured.”

“I said it was nothing serious. It doesn’t even hurt.” I followed his gaze down to my chest. My shirt was soaked in blood. There was a single exposed line from my right shoulder to my left armpit where Corypheus’ knife had sliced through my shirt. The cut hadn’t seemed that deep, but that was a lot of fucking blood. I felt dizzy. “Oh. Right. Yup. That is my blood. Yup. I am actively bleeding. Creators, I think I’m gong to pass out.”

“Renna, stop looking at it, keep your eyes on me. You’re going to be fine,” he said calmly, quickly scanning the room. His eyes narrowed in on something over my shoulder. “Stay right here, don’t move.”

“I don’t have to. The world is spinning plenty on its own.” I closed my eyes tight, lying down on the floor, trying to think of anything other than the blood seeping from my chest.

At the rustling of Cullen’s clothes as he knelt beside me, I opened my eyes. He had returned with a first aid kit.

He opened the kit and hesitated. “I’m going to remove your shirt. Is that all right?”

I nodded. “Do what you have to do.”

He produced a pair of scissors from the kit and cut a neat line up the middle of my shirt, surveying the damage.

“What’s the prognosis, Doc?" I asked weakly. "Am I going to live?”

“Yes, Renna. You’re going to live,” he said, tone placating. “It was a very shallow cut.”

I stared up at the ceiling as he quickly and efficiently tended to my wounds.

“I’m going to help you sit up. Let me know if you are still feeling dizzy.”

I nodded. As I sat, he helped me out of my jacket and cut up t-shirt.

“Do you think that you can lift your arms?”

I nodded. It still didn’t actually hurt. I must have been in shock. I held out my arms as he secured the bandage to my chest using a roll of gauze. The dressing also served as a make shift shirt, which was good because I didn’t want to think about what had happened to the shirt I had arrived in.

Cullen offered me his jacket. “Take it.”

I took it. “What’s wrong with mine?”

“The same thing that was wrong with your shirt.” He said delicately.

“Ah. Is it weird that I kind of want pizza now?” I joked lamely, as I put my arms through the sleeves of the oversized, heavily logoed jacket.

The corner of his lip tugged up in the briefest of smiles as he offered me a bottle of water from the gear bag that I hadn’t noticed strapped to his side. “It would be weirder if you didn’t.”

I took it gratefully and swished some water around my mouth before spitting it onto the floor. Fear had left a bad taste in my mouth.

Why had I ever thought that coming here was a good—

In all of the excitement I had nearly forgotten the actual reason I was there in the first place. “Holy fuck! Sera! I have to find Sera!”

Cullen didn’t seem at all surprised by my outburst. He stood calmly and offered me his hand. “Come with me.”

I took it tentatively. “Where are we going?”

He led me over to the only door in the room not marked with an exit sign.

He opened it.

It was a janitor’s closet.

He stepped inside, bringing me with him.

He dropped my hand. “You’re going to stay here. I’ll go find Sera. There are still others in the building. They are armed and dangerous.” He looked ready to argue with me, as if he expected me to challenge his command.

I briefly wondered why he hadn’t been so concerned with the other inhabitants of the warehouse when he was dressing my wound, but I could wait until later for an answer to that question. There were more pressing things to worry about, like the fact that I had no way to fight someone who was wielding a gun. I didn’t even know how to use one if I somehow managed to get my hands on it. And if it came down to it, I sure as fuck couldn’t kill someone. I tried to tell myself that it was my rational side peaking through that had me agreeing to hide in a closet, and not the slightly pleading look lurking behind the calm authority in Cullen’s eyes.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll stay here.”

His face relaxed slightly, and he nodded his thanks. He grabbed his gun from his holster, turning to leave.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Cullen, wait.”

“What is it? Is something the matter?” He looked back at me, features immediately alert with concern.

“I just—“ Fuck it. There was a chance I wouldn’t get the opportunity again. So I pulled his face down to mine and gave him a brief kiss. So brief it could barely even be considered a kiss. Just a chaste press of my lips against his. Still, my everything tingled. “Be safe.”

He nodded again, this time looking a little dazed.

Shit. Maybe the timing on that hadn’t been the greatest considering he was about to enter a building full of gun wielding maniacs.

He holstered his gun.

Before I could ask him what he was doing, he took my face in both of his hands—being careful of the cut on my cheek—and his lips came crashing back down on mine.

The feel of his skin on mine was electric, sending a bolt of desire straight through me. My arms wound around his neck, pulling him closer, needing to feel the hard press of his body against mine more than I needed air.

His hands settled on my hips, pinning them tightly to his own.

His mouth moved against mine expertly, confidently.

One hand slid up my back, tugging gently at my hair and drawing a slight moan from my lips.

All too soon, he was pulling away, leaving me a panting, breathless, mess.

He rested his forehead against mine. When he spoke, his voice was low, husky; “I will come back for you as soon as I can. I promise.”

I stared up into his honey colored eyes. And gave him a nod, not trusting myself to speak.

He closed the door behind himself.

My eyes adjusted quickly to the dark.

I looked around, taking in my hiding spot.

It was filled to the brim with cleaning supplies.

The minutes ticked by.

I started to get anxious.

Then I heard a single gun shot followed by some sort of commotion coming from the other side of the door.

I leaned closer to the door, trying to make out _anything_.

But the sounds were all muffled.

In my haste to better hear just what the fuck was going on, I knocked one of the four broom handles milling about at elbow level.

Something fell from the top shelf and hit me on the head.

The ground rushed up to meet me as everything went completely black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	13. Safe

The room I was in wasn’t well lit, but I could see a dark shape hovering above me.

I blinked.

Were those horns?

Holy fuck.

Those were fucking horns.

I opened my mouth to scream and a large hand covered it.

“It’s okay, Renna. You’re safe.” The voice was low and vaguely familiar.

I blinked again.

Bare chest.

Tribal tattoos.

Grey skin.

Eye patch.

As recognition dawned, the hand left my mouth.

“Bull? What are you doing here?” I didn’t know where ‘here’ was, but I was fairly certain that Bull shouldn’t have been there. My voice sounded hoarse. I sat up slowly, clearing my throat. The room spun a little.

“I live here. This is my house.” He placed a steadying hand on my shoulder, keeping me from flopping back onto the bed.

I stood corrected. “Then, what am _I_ doing here?”

“How much do you remember?”

“I got a call from Corypheus—“ I paused. “Oh, right. You wouldn’t know him. He’s—“

“I know who he is.”

Why would a bouncer know a drug lord? “How—“

“Not important right now. Keep talking.”

“Corypheus was using Sera’s phone. He abducted her. He wanted me to come take her place. I agreed.” I vaguely wondered if I should have been telling him any of this. But Sera wouldn’t be living with him if she didn’t trust him. And Sera was a good judge of character. I trusted her.

“Not very bright if you ask me.” He crossed his arms against his broad chest, giving me a look of mild disapproval.

I glared up at him. “I didn’t ask you. He gave me a time and an address. Cullen put a wire on me, then dropped me off. Corypheus’ goons grabbed me and brought to the warehouse where he was waiting. Corypheus and I had a pleasant little chat in which he threatened to kill Sera and I, then Cullen came in guns blazing. He took out Corypheus and incapacitated Samson. Then I heroically hid in a janitor’s closet while Cullen went to find Sera. Anything after that is a blank. I think maybe something hit me on the head? Now will you tell me what the fuck I’m doing here?”

“I helped Cullen get you and Sera out of there.”

“You—“ I paused, his involvement wasn’t the thing I needed to be focusing on in that particular moment. “Is Sera okay? Can I see her?”

“She’s good. She’s safe. She’s sleeping right now.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “And Cullen?”

Bull nodded to the corner of the room.

Through the semi-dark of the room, I could see Cullen. He was passed out sideways in an oversized armchair, his legs thrown over one armrest, his head slumped back against the other.

His lips were slightly parted and he was snoring softly.

His face was free of the lines of worry that plagued it when he was awake. He looked more relaxed than I had ever seen him. He looked _younger_.

Creators, I had never seen a more beautiful man.

I tore my gaze away from him before I could be accused of staring. Luckily, Bull’s nod had also brought the rest of the room to my attention, giving me something else to look at. I was on a four-poster king size bed. The sheets below me were black silk. The down comforter wrapped snuggly around me was gold with a fancy black embroidered pattern. The furniture was all black, and the room was accented with varying tones of gold.

My eyes slid back over to Cullen, then shifted away as I felt my cheeks heat. I was careful to keep my voice down; I didn’t want to wake him. “How long has he been asleep?”

“He’s been out cold for about an hour now. And to answer your next question, it’s a little after midnight.”

I nodded. “I have another question." 

"I would be concerned if you didn't."

"How did you find us?”

He snorted softly. “Fucking dumbasses grabbed Sera as she was leaving here. So I followed them. I was checking out a way in when they showed up with you. Then Cullen followed shortly after.”

Following kidnappers didn’t sound like normal civilian behavior. “You’re not with the Police, are you?”

He snorted. “Fuck no. Do I look like Police to you?"

No. No he didn't. "Then—"

"I’m former Ben-Hassarath.”

“Ben-Hassarath?” Why did that sound—oh. My next words came out as a bit of a squeak. “You’re a Qunari spy?”

“Former.” He replied patiently.

That didn't make me feel any less uneasy. “And what exactly do you do now?”

“Freelance mercenary work mostly.”

That _definitely_ didn't make me feel any less uneasy. And it also didn’t tell me why he was working at the Divine Conclave. “And that doesn’t pay the bills so you work as a bouncer?”

He gave me a dry look. “You’re not familiar with how the whole ‘undercover’ thing works, are you?”

“To be fair, you said mercenary work, not undercover work. Who are you working for?”

“Can’t say. A certain amount of discretion is expected in my line of work.”

Right. Discretion. From the man who had just told a complete and total stranger that he was a spy. _Former_ spy.

“That’s fair.” I moved to tuck my hair behind my ear, and my fingers brushed the edge of a bandage. I skimmed over the bandage lightly, it covered the right half of my forehead. So I had been hit on the head after all. “Do you know exactly what happened to my head?”

“Far as I can tell, you knocked a bottle of bleach down off the shelf and clocked yourself. You were unconscious when Cullen made it back to you.”

“So much for a daring rescue.” I muttered.

“Avoid supply closets next time.” He suggested helpfully.

“I’m sincerely hoping that there won’t be a next time.” I sighed. “Why wasn’t I taken to a hospital?”

He shrugged. “They couldn’t do any more for you there than we can here. We have a ‘doctor’ here.”

I didn’t really like the way he said ‘doctor’.

“Think you can stand? We should have Stitches take a look at you now that you’re conscious and moving around.”

“And Stitches is…?” I prompted.

“He’s the one who bandaged your forehead. He’s our resident ‘doctor’.”

There it was again. Maybe it was the potential concussion, but I was starting to think that maybe ‘Stitches’ wasn’t an _actual_ doctor.

“Do you need a hand up? I can carry you if you want.” Bull offered.

That _would_ bring me closer to my unrealized drunken dream of climbing him like a tree. But it would also be slightly embarrassing.

“I think I can walk. I—“ I shifted and the blanket slid down my body. I was momentarily distracted by my distinct lack of clothing. I wasn’t wearing a shirt, only a bandage, wrapped around my torso from shoulder to belly button. I thankfully still had pants on. “What happened to my shirt?”

“Long gone. You forget about that part?”

“Ah. Right.” I gulped. “It’s a bloody tattered mess somewhere near Corypheus’ corpse.”

“I imagine the coroner would have moved him by now. Shirt’s probably in evidence. They have to see how much of the blood on it is his since you were in the splash zone.”

I stared at a spot on the blanket, willing myself not to think about the bloody hole that had been left in Corypheus’ head. I made an unintelligible sound of distress.

“Right.” He chuckled softly. “Heard you’re not a fan of blood.”

I met his eye. “Not really, no. Did Cullen tell you?”

“No, Sera.”

“Of course.” I sighed. Sera loved to tell people all about how much of a sissy I was when it came to blood.

“You don’t have to worry about prancing around half naked. I brought you a change of clothes.”

“Not yours, right?” I would be absolutely swimming in something of his.

“No. Dorian’s.”

“And Dorian is…?” I prompted, trying to delicately fish for Dorian’s race.

“My husband.” He replied, raising a concerned eyebrow. “You forget already? We should probably hurry up and get you checked out.”

So much for delicate. I guess I needed to be blunt with him. “No. I _meant_ is Dorian a Qunari like you, or—“

“Human. About the same build as Cullen.” He handed me a robe off the dresser. Then picked up a small stack of clothes. “No point in getting fully dressed until after Stitches takes a look at you.”

The robe was black silk. I held it up and did a double take as the low light glinted off of the back of the robe. “Does this say ‘Princess’ in hot pink rhinestones?”

“Sure does.” Bull grinned.

I raised an eyebrow skeptically. “And this belongs to your husband?”

“He’s never actually worn it.” Bull shrugged, before cheerfully adding, “I got it for him as a gag gift and he nearly murdered me. Best Satinalia _ever_.”

“Right.” I stood, shrugging on the robe and trying to be as quiet as possible.

Cullen needed as much uninterrupted sleep as he could get.

Yesterday had been a hell of a day for him.

A wave of dizziness hit me and I stumbled. Bull caught my arm easily.

“I may have forgotten how feet work.” I muttered, leaning heavily on Bull’s arm with my eyes tightly closed.

“You need to sit back down?”

“No, I’m good.” I opened my eyes. “Lead the way.”

“All right. Let’s go.” He led me out of the room and down a series of hallways, one thick tree trunk like arm braced snugly around my waist.

The walls were white; the floors were a dark-stained hardwood. Expensive looking artwork lined the walls.

“This place is massive.” I commented as I attempted—and failed—to memorize our path.

“Dorian likes big things.” He said with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrow.

I let out a laugh. “Did you just—was that a dick joke?”

“Does making a dick joke sound like something a respectable former Ben-Hassarath agent would do?” He asked in mock indignation.

“One that Sera likes hanging out with? Absolutely.”

The way to wherever it was that we were going was all a little bit of a blur. Everything looked the same, until we came to a staircase.

Bull patiently helped me down the stairs, then lead me around behind them to an unmarked door.

Bull knocked.

The door opened, revealing a dark skinned man with dark, close cropped graying hair. His eyes were light green.

“Chief?” He questioned.

“Got a patient for you, Stitches.” Bull stepped aside, fully revealing my small frame.

The man looked at me with polite curiosity, gesturing me into the room. “As you've no doubt heard, I am called Stitches.”

I looked around the room. It looked like a regular doctor’s office. One corner had an exam table. Another had a small desk with a computer at it.

“Renna.” I extended my hand.

He gave it a firm shake. Then indicated the exam table. “Have a seat, please.”

I took a seat on the table.

“Well, Renna, you’ve had quite the evening. How are you feeling?”

I shrugged. “Okay I suppose, all things considered. The cut on my chest stings a bit. But, the cut on my face is fine. I’m a little dizzy. I have a headache. Not sure if that’s from the pistol whipping or the bleach bottle though.”

“Pistol whipping?” Bull raised his eyebrow.

I gave him a sideways look, slightly embarrassed. “Yeah…I uh…elbowed Samson in the face and he didn’t like that very much.”

“Ah.” He nodded knowingly.

Stitches pulled out a penlight. “Follow this with your eyes, please.”

I did as he asked, following it as he waved it back and forth across my vision.

He turned his attention to Bull. “You have been speaking with her, yes? Do you suspect a concussion?”

Bull crossed his arms and shrugged his massive shoulders. “She seems pretty coherent to me.”

“All right then. Someone should keep an eye on her though, just in case.” Stitches nodded to Bull, then turned his attention back to me. “Do you mind if I take a look at your chest wound? I want to make sure that it isn’t too deep and that the bleeding has stopped.”

I swallowed hard. “Sure, I guess.”

“Just remove your robe and lay back. This will only take a moment.” He said, putting on a pair of latex gloves.

I did as he asked, and he produced a pair of scissors, cutting straight up the center of the gauze.

“This was taken care of beautifully.” He paused to admire Cullen’s bandage job, then his eyes sank slightly lower.

Was he staring at my tits?

Because that would be incredibly unprofessional.

“Are you wearing a wire?” He asked, indicating the space between my breasts.

Oh. Right. That _would_ be something worth staring at if you weren’t expecting it. I felt my face heat. “Yeah. I guess I sort of forgot about it in all of the excitement.”

“I’ll remove it for you. This might smart a little.” He peeled the strips of tape off, then handed the wire to Bull, who stuck it directly into a little plastic baggie.

“What are you going to do with that?” I asked.

“I’m going to give it to Cullen when he wakes up.”

“Returning to the task at hand, I’ll remove this bandage and get you cleaned up a little better.” Stitches peeled up the edge of the bandage carefully.

I averted my gaze as he set to work ‘getting me cleaned up a little better’. I didn’t want to see any of the blood that I knew was dried to my chest.

Once he was finished, he had me sit up and remove my bra straps from my shoulders so that he could wrap some gauze around my chest. He kept the gauze contained to my upper chest, using just enough to secure the bandage, not trying to create a makeshift shirt like Cullen had.

"You'll want to leave this on until tomorrow evening at the very least." Stitches instructed as he removed his gloves and washed his hands in the small sink by the desk. "After that it should be safe to remove it to take a shower. As long as it's not actively bleeding, it's all right to keep the bandage off and let it breathe."

I nodded. "All right."

“We’ll give you a minute if you wanna get changed.” Bull said.

I nodded again. “Please and thank you.”

Stitches left the room, and Bull handed me the small stack of clothes he had been carrying.

I held up the black shirt and snorted as I read the pink cursive script. “Seriously? ’Daddy’s Princess’? Is it safe to assume that you bought this for him too?”

“Yeah. His birthday. He wasn’t very happy with me. Can’t imagine why. Here’s a bag for your dirty clothes.” Bull handed me a bag, then left, closing the door behind himself.

I stripped my bra the rest of the way off. It was absolutely covered in dried blood. It was a shame really; it had been one of my favorite bras. But there was no point in trying to salvage it. There was no way I would be able to look at it ever again without smelling the metallic tang of blood, or imagining Corypheus’ dead lifeless body.

Dorian’s shirt fit about as well as I anticipated it to. It was large on me, but not uncomfortably so like something of Bull’s would be.

I had half expected the sweat pants to say ‘princess’ down the leg or across the ass, but they were just plain black, and probably the most expensive thing I had ever worn, period.

There was a knock at the door, followed by the low boom of Bull’s voice, “You decent?”

I opened the door, fully clothed. “As decent as one can be while wearing a shirt that says ‘Daddy’s Princess’.”

Bull laughed, then led me back around to the foot of the stairs. He paused, nudging my shoulder with his arm. “You hungry, kid?”

I felt my stomach gurgle as if on cue. “Starving actually. I haven’t eaten anything since about 6:00am yesterday morning.”

“That’s a hell of a long time to go without food.” He nodded for me to follow him away from the stairs.

“Yeah. I didn’t exactly have an appetite at lunch and you already know what a disaster my evening was.”

“Why didn’t you have an appetite at lunch?”

“Because of my teacher.” At his blank look, I continued. “Sera didn’t tell you about my poor life choices?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, well long story short, I slept with one of my teachers and it blew up in my face spectacularly. I broke things off with him yesterday because he was a manipulative prick who was using me for sex, but not before Cullen caught him kissing me and punched him in the face.”

Bull let out a low whistle. “Yesterday was a helluva day for you, huh?”

“Yesterday was a straight up fucking nightmare." I thought for a moment. "Still not in my top three worst days ever though.”

He raised his eyebrow. “Seriously? Being kidnapped and threatened at knife point, after breaking up with some user asshole doesn’t rate in your top three worst days?”

“Well, when you put it like that…” I shook my head. “Nope. Not even close, sadly. But that’s a story for another day. Or, you know, _never_.”

“Fair enough. Everyone is entitled to their secrets.” He led me through an archway and left the light off, moving around the room with a practiced ease.

Thanks to my more than adequate dark vision, I could see that we were in the kitchen. I could make out all of the furniture and appliances, even if I couldn’t make out the entire room.

“What can I get you?” He gestured for me to sit at a barstool at the massive island.

“A sandwich would be fantastic. I’m not picky about what kind.”

He nodded setting to work making me an alarmingly large chicken and bacon sandwich.

“So you and Cullen?” He prompted as he set the sandwich down in front of me.

I eyed the sandwich warily. It was the size of my face and I could barely hold half of it in both hands. There was no nice way to fit it in my mouth, so I just went for it, shoving in as much as possible. “What _about_ me and Cullen?” I asked around a mouth full of sandwich. I didn’t care that I most likely looked like a crazy person. I was starving.

The corner of his lip pulled up as he watched me eat, but he stayed focused on the topic at hand. “I’d have to be blind not to see the way you look at each other. So, you a thing, or not?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

“You don’t know?” He asked skeptically.

“We haven’t exactly had the chance to talk about it what with me breaking up with my last fling less than twenty-four hours ago and then the whole, you know Corypheus _thing_. And…he didn’t seem too interested in me after what happened with my teacher. In fact, he actively avoided touching me. Until he put the wire on me that is.”

He leaned against the island, bringing his face level with mine across the expansive surface. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe he was just giving you some space?”

“No.” I paused taking another bite. “Because when it comes to romance apparently I’m a self-destructive asshole.”

“Something to do with your top three worst days ever?” He prodded gently.

I frowned. “Actually, no. That one’s a recent development.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Nope.”

He nodded, examining me silently.

“I kissed Cullen,” I said quietly, mostly to the sandwich. “Then he _kissed_ me.”

“The difference is?”

“One is a chaste peck on the lips. The other involves tongue and some mild groping. You’re a married man. You really should know the difference.”

He smirked. “I definitely know the difference, just wanted to make sure that _you_ did. You seem pretty innocent in the ways of the world.”

“Innocent is one thing that I’m definitely not.” I snorted. “I’m glad it comes off that way though. I’ve been through some shit that might even make _your_ skin crawl.”

“Oh?” His eyebrow raised in interest. “That’s pretty tough to do.”

“But I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right. You wanna talk about you and Cullen some more? Sometimes it helps to talk things through with someone who has an outside perspective.”

It couldn’t hurt. “I like him. A lot. And it’s not just a physical thing. He’s been really good at taking care of me, and I know from experience that that isn’t always the easiest thing to do. I’ve actually been pretty shit at it myself. I’ve just sort of been on autopilot for the past seven years. Surviving, but not really _living_ , you know?”

“Yeah, I know all about that.”

“Cullen is a nice guy, and I’m pretty sure that I could be happy with him, but…” I trailed off, not really wanting to give voice to the insecurities plaguing my mind.

“You feel like you don’t deserve happiness.” He finished for me.

“No. I don’t.”

“Everyone does.”

“I’ve never really had it though. My family more or less disowned me just for being born. My taste in men is absolute shit. Cullen is the first _nice guy_ I’ve ever had any sort of feelings for. What if I fuck it up? What if he doesn’t even think of me that way?” I knew I was spiraling, but I couldn’t stop. “What if—“

“Stop with the ‘what if’s, kid. You’ll drive yourself crazy. You’ve just gotta take the leap.”

“And hope that I don’t break anything in the process?”

“Life is pain. Fear of pain shouldn’t stop you from living.”

I definitely knew all about life being pain. I ate a few more bites of the sandwich in silence, then pushed the plate away from myself.

“You admitting defeat?” He gestured to the remains of the sandwich.

I crossed my arms, glaring at the remaining quarter of the sandwich. “I think I did pretty good considering that thing weighed as much as I do.”

“I thought you would tap out after a few bites. You did better than I expected you to.” He acquiesced, grabbing the discarded sandwich off my plate and popping the entire thing in his mouth. “You good to go?”

I slid off the stool. “Right, sorry. You’re probably wanting to get to bed. You’ve been up all night.”

“You forgetting that my day job is technically a night job?”

“Oh. Right.” I _had_ forgotten that.

“Dorian wanted to talk with you before you turned in for the night.”

“You should have said something! Now I feel bad for keeping him waiting.”

“Don’t worry about it. He wanted me to make sure that you were taken care of first.”

“Where are we meeting Dorian?” I stood and wiped my hands off on my pants, cringing a little as I remembered that they weren’t actually _my_ pants and that they probably cost about as much as one month’s rent.

“Library.”

“Is it normal for your entire household to be up at this ungodly hour? Or is this just a special occasion?”

“Just follow me, kid.”

It had taken a moment for his words to register. “Wait, did you say library?”

“I sure did.”

I felt excitement buzz through me. “Well, what are you waiting for? Onward!”

Bull shook his head with an amused look on his face, then he led me out of the kitchen, back up the stairs, and through a series of hallways to a set of double doors that I believed to be close to the room I had started in. Not that I had any fucking clue where I was, or how to find my way around the place.

“Go on in.” Bull gestured to the doors.

I paused with my hand on one of the handles. “What about you?”

“I have to go make some rounds.”

“Oh. I’ll see you later then?”

He nodded and left with a small wave over his shoulder.

I took a deep breath and knocked before entering.

That was the polite thing to do, right?

On the other side of the door was a moderately sized library.

The room was well lit by an enormous crystal chandelier.

There were floor to ceiling shelves surrounding the perimeter of the entire room. Each shelf was neatly lined with book after book.

The only break in the shelves was straight across from the door in the form of a large floor to ceiling window. It was too dark outside to see what the window overlooked.

There were two chairs by the window. One of them was occupied.

The man had bronzed sun-kissed skin, black hair that was short on the sides with the top styled in a fashionable faux hawk, and a well-groomed mustache that was curled at the ends.

He was dressed in some sort of stylish robe over a silken button up pajama set.

His entire demeanor screamed ‘Look at me, I’ve got money’.

He set his book down and stood.

I crossed the room slowly, staring at the books in wonder.

His eyes fell to the shirt I was wearing, and his face tightened into a look of annoyance. It was gone in an instant and replaced with a polite smile as his gaze landed on my face. “You must be Renna.”

“I suppose someone has to be.” I said with a resigned sigh. It was out of my mouth before I realized that some people might have found it to be an incredibly rude response.

“I have a feeling that I’m going to like you.” The polite smile shifted into a cheery grin and he gave me a small bow that I’m fairly certain was meant to put me at ease. “Detective Dorian Pavus at your service.”

“Detective?” I stopped short.

“Yes. From Minrathous. I’ve been following Corypheus and his merry band of lyrium smuggling idiots for longer than my vanity would allow me to admit.”

“So. You’re a Detective. From Tevinter. And you’re married to an ex-foreign spy.”

“That would be correct.”

“How does that happen, exactly?”

“He was on assignment in Tevinter. Our eyes met across a crowded party. He tried to kill me. I tried to shoot him. We fell madly in love and got married. It was all terribly romantic.”

“Well, that sounds like something that I could use slightly more elaboration on.”

“We’re not here to talk about me, my dear. We’re here to talk about you. And Bull really needs to stop telling people that he’s only just met that he’s former Ben-Hassarath.”

“Technically I met him before. At the club,” I said after a pause. I was trying to sort everything out in my head. It had been seven years since I had even spoken to a Police officer, and now I was ass deep in Detectives, former spies, and Wardens—or not Wardens, whatever Leliana actually happened to be. “I think I may need to sit down.”

“Of course, of course. Where are my manners? Please have a seat, Renna.” He gestured to the chair across from him.

I sat in the indicated chair, meeting his hazel eyes. “Speaking of manners, I really should be thanking you for taking us into your home.”

“It’s no trouble, really.”

“I suppose I should also thank you for taking in Sera while I’ve been dealing with all of this bullshit.”

He chuckled as he reoccupied his seat. “I would say that that was no trouble as well, but we both know that Sera has a penchant for mischief.”

“She electrified the doorknobs?” I hazarded a guess.

“Among other things.”

“That just means she likes you. Her foster mother made the mistake of letting her watch ‘Home Alone’ when she was like five years old. She has a bit of an unhealthy obsession with it.”

“That’s putting things mildly. So, how does a Forensic Psychology student with a 4.0 GPA get sucked into the seedy underbelly of Thedas?”

“Sera bragging about me again?” I asked. It was the only logical explanation I could come up with for him knowing anything about me. Although, his husband _was_ former Ben-Hassarath.

“Actually, yes. She said you’re the smartest person that she knows, and then something about cinnamon buns? It was all fairly incoherent. I just smiled and nodded.”

“She’s the one who got me into this mess. Unintentionally.”

“And how did she manage that?”

“She dragged me out to the Divine Conclave and I witnessed a murder.”

“Anyone special?” He asked, examining his fingernails. The blasé way that he talked about death was a tad unnerving.

“Divine Justinia. Corypheus slit her throat.”

“About Corypheus—“

“He’s dead. Very, very dead.” I wrinkled my nose as visions of his very, very dead face came to mind.

He frowned the slightest bit. “Are you absolutely certain? He has been known to fake his own death in the past.”

I hugged my knees to my chest. “Pretty sure. I poked his lifeless corpse myself after Cullen shot him between the eyes.”

“You poked—sorry, what?” The surprised expression on his face was slightly priceless.

I shrugged. “I think I was in shock. I might still be in shock? I have witnessed two deaths in the last two weeks…and I’m fairly certain that I still haven’t finished processing the first one. Scratch that. I’m definitely certain that I haven’t finished processing the first one.”

“So, Divine Justinia—and now Corypheus I suppose—have perished in front of you. And that’s why the Police have been keeping such a close eye on you.”

I raised my eyebrow. “You don’t think that they would have put me into protective custody if I had witnessed a more low profile murder?”

“They certainly wouldn’t have given you an _entire_ detective.”

“An _entire_ detective?” I had never heard ‘detective’ used as a unit of measurement before.

“Yes, normally in these circumstances you would have a rotation of competent—but ultimately low paid officers.”

“Oh. Well, you would be the expert there I suppose. So…what happens now?” I asked. “Should I be going to the Police station to make a statement?”

“We’ll take you to the Police station in the morning. They are mostly likely still in the process of sorting out everything at the warehouse. Bull and your detective made quite the mess.”

“My detec—Oh.” I felt my face heat as I realized that he was referring to Cullen. “He’s not _my_ detective.”

He looked distinctly amused. “Are you certain about that?”

“Yes.” I had too many other things that I should have been focusing on. I couldn’t allow myself to think of Cullen that way when we hadn’t so much as spoken since our kiss. “What about Detective Pentaghast? I imagine that she wouldn’t be content with waiting until morning. She would want me to give a statement now that I’m conscious.”

“Detective Rutherford took care of that. The two of you will give your statements together in the morning.”

“I have a hard time believing that Detective Pentaghast went for that.”

“He didn’t give her much choice. He reminded her that you were placed in his custody and informed her that he intended to continue his watch over you until you regained consciousness. He feels responsible for what happened. Our ex-Templar friend seems to be quite smitten with you, my dear.”

“Ex…Templar?” I asked in confusion. The Templars were a specialized division of the Police. They dealt almost exclusively in undercover operations. I hadn’t thought about it before, but it sort of made sense that he was a former Templar. It would also explain how Samson knew Cullen, which I hadn’t questioned in the moment because I had been too busy dangling from the arm of a psychopath who had a knife pressed against my skin.

“He hasn’t mentioned his past to you?”

“No, he didn’t. And it isn’t exactly any of my business. I’m just some girl he’s been stuck babysitting for the past week and a half.”

“If you say so. But I think you’re giving yourself too little credit. You know, he didn’t leave your side the entire time you were unconscious.”

“He was just worried because it’s his job. That’s all.” I didn’t believe the words that were coming out of my mouth. I wasn’t sure why I was downplaying everything to Dorian when I had outright told Bull about my feelings for Cullen. It was more than a sense of duty that had kept Cullen watching over me, if that kiss we had shared was anything to go by.

That kiss.

Creators, that kiss.

“You should see the way he looks at you.” Dorian interrupted my reminiscing.

The door opened with a bit of a bang.

Cullen stood in the doorway.

He looked tense, slightly frantic, and a tad out of breath.

His eyes fell on me and he immediately relaxed.

I supposed _that_ was fairly close to the way he looked at me. I felt my face heat further.

“Renna. Maker’s breath. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” A blush crept across his cheeks as he realized that I wasn’t alone.

“Are you all right, Detective?” Dorian asked.

“Yes, I—“

“You look a little flushed. Shall we have Stitches take a look at you as well?” Dorian smirked, clearly enjoying Cullen’s discomfort.

That made Cullen’s face go even redder.

“Be nice.” I chided, throwing a glare Dorian’s way. I wasn’t sure how effective it was, since I was fairly certain that my face was as red as Cullen’s.

“I’m _always_ nice.” He stood. “I believe that it is time to retire for the evening. I’m afraid you’ll have to share the guest bedroom. I have two, but Sera is occupying the other.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch.” Cullen volunteered automatically through some misguided sense of chivalry.

“Nonsense.” Dorian waved his hand dismissively. “It’s a king size bed. I’m certain she won’t bite. Unless you ask her nicely.”

“Maker’s breath.” Cullen muttered. “I’ll just sleep outside if it will save me from this conversation.”

“How will you make sure that she stays out of trouble from all the way out there?”

“I—“

As adorable as his floundering was, I decided to spare him. “We can share a room, Cullen. It’s not a big deal. Plus, the sooner we agree, the sooner Dorian will stop harassing you about it.”

Dorian nodded with a cheerful smile. “She’s right, you know.”

Cullen sighed. “All right.”

Dorian started heading out of the library, pausing briefly at the door. “Do you think you can find your way back to your room?”

“I sure as shit can’t.” I replied honestly.

Cullen thought for a moment, then made a face. “We would welcome a guide.”

“All right. This way, then. Do try to keep up.” Dorian gestured for us to follow him.

He led us out the door and down a hallway.

Then another hallway.

Then another.

How did a place that size only have two spare rooms?

What the hell was behind all of those doors?

Finally, Dorian stopped in front of a door.

It looked exactly like all of the other doors that we had passed.

“Here we are.” He opened the door and gestured inside. “The bathroom is just across the hall. Help yourself to any toiletries you find.”

“Thanks, Dorian.” I replied.

“Have a pleasant sleep, Renna. And you as well, Cullen.” Dorian nodded to each of us in turn with a mischievous sparkle in his eye, then without another word, he left.

Cullen and I were alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to post this Tuesday, buuuut it still needed some minor tweaking. 
> 
> I typically aim for a minimum of around 3000 words for a chapter...and this one ended up being over 5500. I considered splitting it up into two chapters, but this chapter was split in half once already _before_ I started editing. 
> 
> And it _still_ ended up being a long one, haha.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	14. Closer

The last time Cullen and I were alone, there had been some very urgent, very lust-fueled kissing going on.

Now the danger had passed.

And I didn’t know how to act around him.

It didn’t help that I couldn’t get a read on what he was feeling.

Would he want to pick up where we left off?

I hoped that the answer to that question was a _resounding_ yes, like it was for me.

But what if it wasn’t?

What if he never wanted to touch me that way again?

What if kissing me like that had just been a momentary lapse in judgment and he just wanted to forget about the whole Creators damned thing and continue doing his _actual job_?

I had started in with the 'what if's again. I really needed to cut that shit out.

I observed him quietly, my mind going a mile a minute.

I hoped that he couldn’t see the way my stomach was twisted up in knots from all of the unknowns facing me.

I just needed to pretend that nothing was different between us. And that he hadn’t shattered my world with a single kiss.

I felt my face flush at the thought of his tongue teasing along my lips, his hands tightly gripping my hips, pulling me against his rock hard—

“Renna—“ He started, expression serious. Too serious. That couldn’t be good.

“I have to pee!” I all but shouted it at him. I didn’t wait for his response, making a hasty retreat from the room.

I closed the bedroom door as quickly and quietly as possible.

Yikes.

So much for playing it cool.

Apparently one kiss transformed me into an awkward teenager who didn’t even know how to talk to boys.

Not that Cullen was a boy.

Far from it, actually.

“Fuck.” I muttered under my breath. It took everything I had to not to bang my head on the wall out of frustration at myself.

How the fuck was I going to make it through sharing a bed with him?

Maybe I should offer to sleep in the chair? It was definitely big enough for me to sleep comfortably in.

But I couldn’t do that.

I had been the one who had practically _insisted_ that sharing a bed was no big deal.

I opened the door directly across the hallway from the bedroom.

The bathroom was decorated similarly to the bedroom, all dark tones with golden accents.

I couldn’t have a bath yet, but I eyed the black, free-standing, deep soaker tub longingly, incredibly tempted to disobey the ‘doctor’s’ orders.

Why was it that everywhere I had stayed in the past two weeks had such nice bathroom fixtures?

If it weren’t for the fact that we were renting—and that we would be the fuck out of there as soon as I finished school—I would tell Sera that we needed to renovate our boring old bathroom.

Despite the fact that I couldn’t indulge in the bathtub, I removed my shirt anyway, taking the opportunity to examine myself in the full-length mirror.

Fuck.

I looked like hell.

It was to be expected of course.

I had _technically_ been kidnapped and had _most definitely_ been manhandled.

It wasn’t the worst condition I had seen my body in.

Not by a long shot.

But it was still a little jarring to see evidence of abuse where there hadn't been any for so long.

Two squares of pristine white cotton had been fastened to my face with medical grade tape. One at my right temple, and one on my left cheek.

Beyond the bandages adorning my face, my un-bandaged cheek was bruised from where Samson struck me with his gun. My bottom lip had been split with the same blow.

I glossed over the bandage on my chest, the wound had bled a fuck ton, and that was all I needed to know. It didn’t matter what _that_ bandage was covering up.

There was a bracelet of bruises circling my left wrist from where Corypheus had grabbed me, and a bruise low on my hip from where I had landed when he dropped me.

My hair was a straggly mess, full of dried blood and warehouse dust.

I did marginally better with dried blood than I did with fresh blood, but I still took a damp washcloth to my hair to rid myself of the vile stuff.

Once I had cleansed my skin and hair of any lingering rust coloring, I replaced my borrowed shirt and ran my fingers through my hair in an attempt to smooth the tangles, and when that didn’t work, I hastily wove it into a single braid that hung over my shoulder.

I hunted through the cupboards for a toothbrush and toothpaste.

If there was even the tiniest chance that I would be kissing Cullen tonight, I wanted to have fresh breath.

Once I was slightly more presentable, I stalled.

I didn’t want to go back and face him. But I could only hide in the bathroom for so long.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as I crossed the hall and opened the bedroom door.

Cullen was lying on the bed when I returned.

He was still fully clothed, and as far to one side as he could get without having any limbs hanging off the edge.

I would have laughed if I hadn’t been contemplating doing the exact same fucking thing.

I turned off the light, and crossed the room to get on the bed beside him.

I had a minor dilemma.

I rarely wore anything more than just panties to bed. I could suffer through wearing the oversized t-shirt. But I never wore pants to bed. Period. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get comfortable enough to sleep if I kept them on.

Would he notice if I took them off?

My panties were simple black cotton and pretty modest in terms of the amount of butt-cheek showing. So, if he happened to catch a glimpse it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, would it?

I stole a glance at him.

He was facing slightly away from me. He probably wouldn't notice, as long as I was quick.

I bit my lip, quickly shimmying out of my pants and immediately getting under the covers.

We laid side by side—with enough room for Bull to fit comfortably between us—in silence for a few moments.

He hadn’t tried to say anything since I had returned to the room.

Maybe whatever he had been about to say before my cowardly retreat hadn’t been that important after all.

Or maybe he had fallen back asleep.

I was wide-awake after my mini-coma.

“Cullen?” I winced as my quiet voice cut harshly through the silent darkness.

I didn’t expect an answer, but he surprised me by answering anyway.

“Yes, Renna?” His voice was low, matching my whisper.

“I’m not tired.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, then, “I’m not either.”

I turned to look at him. My eyes had already adjusted to the darkness.

He was staring straight up at the ceiling, chewing pensively on his lip. “There's something—I should probably—I wanted to apologize.”

“For?” I had a sinking feeling that he was going to apologize for kissing me.

“What I—“ He faltered. “That is, what you—Corypheus. I’m sorry that you saw me take his life. I wouldn’t blame you if that has altered your perception of me. I’m not apologizing for what I did. Maker knows what he would have done to you and he needed to be stopped. I had a clear shot at him, so I took it. But, I do regret your witnessing it. If I could have kept you from seeing more violence and death, I would have.”

I had just accepted the fact that he had killed someone in front of me. I hadn’t even questioned it. Because he was one of the good guys. Should it have bothered me? Probably. But it didn’t. I blurted out the first stupid thing that came to mind, “That doesn’t bother me. Does it bother you?”

"Yes. It does." He was quiet for a moment. “Each life I’ve taken weighs heavily on my conscience. But I’ve taken an oath to serve and protect, and sometimes that means doing things that I would rather not.” He leaned up on his elbow, looking down at me. “I know I’ve made a bit of a mess of things, and I’m not sure if it counts for anything, but I wanted you to know that I…enjoy spending time with you.”

“Oh, um.” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I was caught off guard by the intensity of his eyes. I felt my face heat, and I was glad for the darkness of the room. I pulled myself into a sitting position, the blanket pooling around my waist. “You haven’t made a mess of things. If anything, _I’ve_ made a mess of things. I was actually sort of worried that you didn’t want anything to do with me.”

His face settled into confusion. “What would make you think that?”

I raised one shoulder lamely. “Because of the whole ‘Professor Solas’ thing.”

Realization dawned on his face, immediately followed by mild horror. “I apologize. When you—when I—when _we_ kissed, we didn’t get the chance to discuss—are you still with—“

I held up my hands, waving them in front of myself. “Oh, no, it’s not—No! Fuck no. I would never start things—No! Just, no. I broke things off with Professor Solas. Pretty much as soon as I got to his office, actually. He wasn’t who I thought he was. Apparently I was just some _thing_ for his momentary amusement. I was actually referring to the fact that you saw me kissing him.”

“That isn’t what I saw.” He said quietly.

“Then you need to get your eyes checked.”

“I saw _him_ kissing _you_. You weren’t an active participant in the matter.”

“So…” I trailed off, still unsure of what to say.

“I like you, Renna. More than I should reasonably admit out loud.”

“I—“ I hesitated, picking nervously at my nails, avoiding looking at him. I wanted to say it back, but I was scared. Too many things had been going wrong for me lately, and some small part of me was worried that I would fuck this up monumentally. My eyes flicked back up to his face.

His mouth had set in a somewhat grim line of understanding. “That was very forward of me. I apologize if I’ve made you uncomfortable. If you would prefer, we can forget everything that happened yesterday evening.”

I didn’t want to forget. I wanted to kiss him again and never stop kissing him.

Before I had the chance to voice that, he continued, “Adrenaline was running high and—“

I got up on my knees and closed the distance between us, silencing him with a kiss.

He didn’t respond the way I expected him to respond—the way he had responded the last time our lips had touched. This time he remained stiff and kept his hands to himself.

“Renna.” He said gently against my mouth. “Stop.”

I pulled away immediately as if I had been slapped. I hastily scooted back over to my half of the bed as the bottom dropped out from my stomach. How had I misread things so completely? “Shit. I’m _so_  sorry. I thought—Fuck. I shouldn’t have—I’ll…keep my lips to myself from now on.”

“No—I didn’t mean—“ He held up his hands in front of himself, as if warding off my words. “I want to. Maker knows I want to. But, you’ve been through a lot in the past twenty-four hours.“

He was right of course.

But I still wanted to argue the point. “That doesn’t—“

“I want you to be certain that _this_ —that _I_ am what you want. I don’t want you to rush into something that you might regret. I am content to give you all the time and space that you require to process everything. I’m not going anywhere.”

I lay back down, picking at my nails once again. I didn’t trust myself not to say something stupid.

After a moment, he laid down too.

An awkward silence stretched between us.

Once again, I could only take so much.

“So… you used to be a Templar?” I could have slapped myself. So much for _that_ being none of my fucking business. Well done.

“Yes, I was.” He said shortly, as if he would rather talk about literally anything else.

“Sorry. If you don’t—“

He sighed. It was a heavy sound. Something much older and wearier than his thirty-one years. “It’s not that—my time with the Templars was—it’s difficult for me to speak about.”

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

I felt him shift on the bed.

He had moved into a sitting position, staring straight ahead at the door.

“I knew from a young age that I wanted a career in law enforcement,” he started, pausing briefly to collect his thoughts before continuing. “I started my career as a Police officer. The Templars recruited me from the Police shortly after my twentieth birthday. Apparently I had shown promise. My first assignment was undercover at Kinloch Hold.”

“Wait…Kinloch Hold?” That sounded familiar. I pulled myself back into a sitting position and looked over at him. “Isn’t that the prison where those prisoners took obscene amounts of drugs, went crazy and killed a bunch of people?” My recollection of the details was a little bit fuzzy, because it had happened roughly a decade ago.

He nodded, a slightly pained expression on his face.

“Oh. You were…there.” Go me. I had managed to reduce his painful memory to a single insensitive sentence.

He nodded, a single jerk of his chin, his eyes going far away, staring into a horrible past that I could only imagine. “I was on assignment there for a little under a year.”

Bringing up his Templar days had been stupid and inconsiderate. I never should have—

He shook his head, clearing the cobwebs of the past and continued. “Immediately following the events of that hellish nightmare, I was scouted for an undercover operation within a lyrium smuggling ring in Kirkwall. I was placed in a position as one of Samson’s men.”

“That would explain how he knew you…” I said quietly, mostly to myself, as I drew my knees to my chest while remaining under the blanket. He had gone from undercover during one of the most infamous prison riots in the last twenty years, straight into Kirkwall, which didn’t exactly have the best reputation when it came to being anything other than a shit hole.

“I was transferred to Kirkwall around four years before red lyrium started gaining popularity. I was working exclusively with traditional lyrium. Certain things were—there was an expectation. An unsavory lifestyle that I was expected to participate in as one of Samson’s men. And participate I did. As you can imagine, indulging in lyrium resulted in becoming addicted to lyrium. Back in those days, I did a lot of things that I wasn’t proud of. I was deep undercover, but that doesn’t excuse—“ He stopped, looking like he hadn’t meant to reveal that part of his past. Once his surprise faded, his eyes burned with shame at the admission of something that he likely viewed as a weakness. He ran a hand through his hair and let it settle at the back of his neck.

He had been addicted to lyrium.

I had never known anyone that had consumed drugs beyond the occasional recreational use of elfroot. Elfroot was used primarily as a relaxant. The high had a mellowing effect. Lyrium was in an entirely different league. The high was manic. If you didn't properly know your limits, you were likely to experience the less desirable side effects. Paranoia. Obsessive behavior. Difficulty distinguishing memory or dream from reality.

Did he still use?

I tried to look at him objectively and not through the eyes of someone who had a not-so subtle crush on him.

His skin had a healthy glow; his eyes were clear and focused.

He looked the exact opposite of Samson.

I kept my expression carefully blank. He didn’t need to see the thoughts running rampant through my mind splattered across my face. “How long were you there for?”

“Seven years.”

So he would have been there during the fall of Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard.

The comings and goings of the Templars were usually kept in the strictest secrecy, but she had fucked up to the point of making international news. I knew the case fairly well, as it had only happened a few years prior, meaning I was old enough to actually care about retaining the details.

At some point during her war on drugs, Meredith had forgotten that drugs were in fact bad and started dosing herself with red lyrium. She had been under the impression that ingesting drugs would help her to think like the criminals she was trying to dismantle, allowing her to get one step ahead of them. She was vicious. A viper who killed drug dealers and innocents indiscriminately. According to Varric, it had been a hell of a time to live in Kirkwall.

She was a bit of a psychopath, and as a Forensic Psychology student, I found her utterly fascinating.

Ultimately, her obsession led to her demise. She died of a red lyrium overdose.

There was a fairly decent chance that Cullen had known her. He might have even worked under her.

This time I kept my insensitive questions to myself, despite the fact that I had approximately a million that I wanted to ask. “Seven years. That’s…a very long time.”

“Yes. It is. I’ve been trying to put that life behind me. I’ve been clean for nearly two years now. After the events in Kirkwall, I was transferred to the Haven division of the Police at Cassandra’s request. She knew me from our days at the Police academy. I…wasn’t the same man that she attended school with. After—a person can’t be expected to be the same after all of that. Still, she saw something in me and…I suppose she has more faith in me than I do in myself.”

Two years sober.

It made me see him in a different light.

This wasn’t just a good-looking man who protected people for a living.

He had seen more than his fair share of horrors. _Lived through_ more than his fair share of horrors, and come out the other side stronger and most importantly _alive_.

He was a survivor.

Just like I was a survivor.

“I admire your strength.” I rested my hand gently on his arm, allowing him the chance to pull away if the touch was unwelcome.

His eyebrow raised in confusion. “I’m not—“

I shook my head. “Yes. You are. You’ve been through so much shitty stuff and you’re still this amazing guy and—”

He shook his head. “I admire _your_ strength.”

I snorted. “My strength is pretty much non-existent. I completely shut down in the face of danger. If you hadn’t been there when Corypheus called me…I don’t know what would have happened.”

His honey colored eyes turned deadly serious. “As long as I draw breath, you will never have to be alone. I will always ensure your safety.”

Whoa.

That was quite the declaration.

It made my insides feel all warm and fuzzy.

My grip on his arm tightened a fraction.

“I’m not certain what you’re worried about anyway,” he continued. “You were perfectly adequate at defending yourself when we sparred.”

“’Perfectly adequate’?” I let out a surprised laugh. “Just singing my praises, hey? I bet you compliment all of your sparring partners like that.”

“I have a reputation to uphold. I can’t go around advertising the fact that you knocked me on my ass in ten seconds flat.”

“And?” I prompted, not caring that he might consider it rude to fish for a compliment.

He met my eyes evenly, a smile on his lips. “You impressed me.”

“Was that so hard?” I teased with a slight grin before letting it drop from my face. “That was a controlled environment though. I knew you weren’t going to actually hurt me. Also I was showing off, cause, you know, I think you’re hot.”

He cleared his throat, cheeks going red. He was so fucking adorable. “You mentioned that you were adept at throwing knives as well.”

“That’s not really any good against a gun pointed at the back of my head. Especially when I don’t have any knives to throw. Throwing knives at a stationary target—and occasionally Sera—is completely different than actually _fighting_ people.”

I felt his arm tense in surprise under my hand. “Maker's breath. Why did you throw knives at your best friend?”

“She wanted to see if she could catch them." I said with a shrug. "Spoiler alert. She couldn’t. Don’t worry, I didn’t actually _hit_ her.”

He sighed and shook his head with a disapproving frown. “How much alcohol was involved in this endeavor?”

“Not a lot. Like, just the perfect amount. But, I digress. I needed to be saved last night, and that sort of…bothers me.”

“There isn’t anything wrong with needing to be saved. This isn’t exactly the sort of thing that happens to you daily, after all.”

“You were fine.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up into a small half smile. “Despite the fact that this sort occurrence is more within the norm for me, I was actually fairly far from ‘fine’.”

“What? You were so calm in the car though—“

His smile turned rueful. “That wasn’t calm. My composure was actively fraying.”

I frowned. “Really? You could have fooled me…in fact you did fool me.”

“In my line of work, I can’t afford to let my emotions cloud my judgment. I need to keep a level head at all times, and letting you out of that car was one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever had to do.”

Creators, this man.

He had been scared to let me go.

I couldn’t focus on that though. If I focused on that, I would be in his lap stripping off my remaining clothes. “So you don’t…think any less of me for crying like a baby after… _you know_?”

“Of course not. I think you were incredibly brave. You might have said some incredibly unwise things to Corypheus, but you were brave nonetheless.”

I gave him a confused look. “How do you know what I said?”

“I had an earpiece in. I was listening to the transmission as it was being recorded.”

“I’m really glad that I had you looking out for me.”

“I’m not going to lie, this assignment has had its challenging moments, but I’m glad too.”

“What made you decide to take this assignment anyway?”

A small, self-deprecating smile spread across his lips. “I could tell you that it simply time for me to start believing in myself again, but that would be a lie. _You_ were the reason I accepted the assignment.”

“Me?” I asked disbelievingly. “You didn’t even know me. You hadn’t even _seen_ me.”

“That’s not—I may have been listening in with Leliana while you gave your statement.” He had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed at the admission. “You saw something terrible and you risked your safety to do something about it. You continue to risk yourself everyday.” His eyes fell to where my hand still rested on his arm. His lips tugged into a heart-stopping smile as he met my gaze once again. “Also, you called Cassandra intimidating straight to her face.”

“Shit. I did, didn’t I?” I grimaced. “I tend to say stupid shit when I’m stressed. Or uncomfortable. Or just in general, really.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen anyone do that and live to tell the tale.” His smile faded into a slightly more serious look. “I have a question for _you_. How did you know that I used to be a Templar?”

“Dorian mentioned something about it in passing.”

“Ah.”

“Shit. Was it supposed to be a secret?” Had I just gotten Dorian in trouble?

“Of course not, its just not exactly something that I tend to advertise this early in a relationship—not that I think we’re—that is to say—Maker’s breath.“

“Speaking of Dorian,” I started, trying to not-so-subtly change the subject to something that didn’t make me want to kiss him senseless, “what do you think of our hosts?”

“They make me a little uneasy if I’m to be completely honest.”

“Oh? Why’s that? I think they’re lovely.” Was there something I was missing? Some cop sense that I didn’t have?

“Bull has hinted that he and Dorian would be interested in—“ He stopped, his face more uncomfortable than I had ever seen it, and _that_ was saying something. “Maker’s breath. I can’t even say it.”

I thought for a moment. What could the Qunari and his Tevinter husband want with Cullen that would make him _that_ uncomfortable? One thing came to mind. I hazarded a guess. “A three way?”

“Yes. That.” His mutter was barely audible.

“Not enjoying the attention?” I teased. Why was it so easy to tease him? Why did I want to spend the rest of my days teasing him?

“Yours—“ He cleared his throat, lowering his voice, “Yours is the only attention worth having.”

I bit my lip; fuck he was making this difficult. “You’re sure you don’t want to pick up where we left off in that closet?”

His gaze heated, and he leaned towards me almost unconsciously. “I would like nothing more, but I don’t want you to feel as if I’m taking advantage of you.”

I looked up at him from under my eyelashes, willing him to close the distance. “You should probably know that you’re saying all the right things to get into my pants right this second.”

He shook his head as if chastising himself for moving so close to me. “This is far more difficult than I imagined it would be. It would appear that my self-control is very… _limited_ around you.”

I felt my stomach flutter. But I didn’t want to push _him_ into something that he would regret; since he was concerned about my feelings I knew I should offer him the same courtesy. I removed my hand from his arm. “If you’re certain about waiting, I suppose I can behave myself.”

“I am certain.”

“Then…” I paused, chewing absently on my lip. What sort of things did people talk about that didn’t lead to something sexual? I decided on something that should have been fairly harmless. “What do you do for fun?”

He looked a little thrown by the question. “Fun?”

“You know, that thing you have during your free time, when you’re not working, or babysitting adult women.”

“Ah. Fun. Yes. I’ve heard of it. I play chess.”

“Are you any good?”

“I'm not bad. Do you play?”

“I’ve tried it a couple of times but I’m not sort of shit at it.”

“I could help you improve your game, if you’d like. It would be nice to have someone to play with again.”

I thought for a moment. Strategy games weren’t really my thing. But his eagerness to teach me to be better at something that he enjoyed made my heart thud erratically against my chest. “I would like that. What got you into chess?”

“As a child I used to play with my sister. She would get this stuck up grin whenever she won—which was all the time. My brother and I practiced together for weeks. The look on her face the day I finally won…” He smiled at the memory, then his gaze turned sad. “Between serving the Templars and joining the Haven Police department, I haven’t seen them since last Satinalia.”

“Are you close to your siblings?”

“Not as close as I would like.” He admitted. “We text back and forth occasionally, and of course I see them for the holidays. I don’t make the trip as often as I could though. They live in Honnleath.” At my blank look, he added, “It’s roughly three hours away by car, or a forty-five minute flight.”

“Ah.” I nodded as if I knew exactly what he was talking about. “Tell me about your siblings.”

“Mia is the eldest, I’m next, then Branson, Rosalie is youngest.”

“And Rosalie wants to be a doctor?”

He gave me a surprised look. “You remembered.”

He didn’t need to know that I remembered every little detail of his life that he had shared with me. Not that he had shared an abundance of personal details.

“Has she decided on her specialization?” I asked.

“Not yet, though she is leaning heavily towards emergency medicine.”

“You must be so proud of her. That’s not an easy thing to do. I know I definitely wouldn’t be able to do it. Since, you know, just the thought of blood makes me want to throw up.”

“I am proud of her. I’m proud of all of my siblings, actually. Even though Mia has been insufferable in her role as the eldest since our mother and father passed away.”

“How—“

“A car crash. Eleven years ago. Mia was twenty-one. I had just turned twenty and was about to enter my Templar training. Branson was eighteen and already living out on his own. Rosalie was fifteen and went to live with Mia.”

“I’m so sorry. It’s never easy losing a family member, and to lose two at once…” I had had a complicated relationship with my grandfather, but the sense of loss still existed despite the fact that we had never seen eye to eye on anything.

“It was a long time ago.” Despite the indifference in his tone, I could see the sorrow creeping into his eyes.

That was a very heavy topic of conversation and I wanted to steer us towards something a touch more light hearted for the purposes of getting to know him better. “Tell me about Mia and Branson. What do they do for a living? Are any of your siblings married?”

“Mia is married, she stays at home with her son Jacob, she has a daughter on the way. Branson does carpentry work, he just got engaged and his fiancée is pregnant with their son. Rosalie is focused on her career, and as far as I know she hasn’t been seeing anyone.”

“Wow, the amount of children in your life is gonna triple in the next couple of months. Are you excited?”

“Very much so.” He looked the part too.

“So, I’m assuming that Jacob is the one who kicks your ass at Mario Kart?”

“Yes. I mean no, I let him—“ He let out a small chuckle. “There’s no right answer here, is there?”

I grinned at him. “Nope.”

“What about you? Do you have any siblings?”

“None that I know of,” I said with a shrug. “Mom never had any more kids, and I never knew my father. He was twenty-five. Mom was fifteen. He knocked her up and ran for the fucking hills.”

“I apologize. You’ve mentioned that your home life was less than happy. I didn’t mean to—“

I sprawled back on the bed. “No, it’s all right. I asked about your family, you’re allowed to ask about mine. It’s not like it’s some big secret that my family life was messed up.”

We talked about our families for hours.

Talking about his family made him seem happy, carefree, _lighter._

He had a bunch of amusing stories about his siblings, and by the time sleep did claim us—around 4:00am—I was missing people that I had never met.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An alternate title would be ‘awkward dorks who are totally in love, but don’t realize it yet because they're too awkward and dorky’ but I’ve been trying _really, really_ hard to limit myself to single word chapter titles.
> 
> It took a bit longer than I anticipated, but the chapter ended up being another long one, sooo it sort of evens out, right? :D
> 
> This week where I live we’ve had a shit ton of rain interspersed with a couple of brutally warm days, and this weather is sapping my energy something fierce. Like, don’t get me wrong, I fucking love rainy days. But, my favorite thing to do on a rainy day is read a book. And when I’m reading I’m not writing, so you see the dilemma. And as for the warm days…well, my brain ceases to function properly if its warmer than 20 degrees (celsius) outside. And it's been an average of about 25-30 degrees.
> 
> So I've been reading...and not functioning all week long.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	15. Normal

The transition to consciousness happened in gradual stages of increasing awareness.

The first thing that I became aware of was a comfortable warmth at my back.

The second thing that I became aware of was a particularly muscular arm draped over my waist, with a hand lightly cupping my breast.

The third thing that I became aware of was the fact that I was very much not in my own bed.

The reddish glow of the dawning sun peeked through a crack in the curtains, highlighting the clock on the nightstand.

It was just after 7:00 am.

Somehow in the three hours that we had been asleep, Cullen had ended up spooning me.

He smelled _really_ good.

Better than I remembered.

I could lay there encircled in the warmth of his arms all day breathing him in.

My awareness branched out even further, and—

Oh, Creators.

Was that his morning wood?

Despite the fact that I was under the blanket, and he was on top of it I could clearly feel the outline of his erection nestled between my ass cheeks.

It wasn’t the first time that I had felt him pressed against me this way. In fact it had been less than twenty-four hours since our little sparring match. But with everything else that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, I had forgotten just how _huge_ he was.

Instead of pondering the logistics of exactly how something _that size_ was going to fit into my tiny body, the proper thing to do would be to extract myself from the safety—and temptation—of his arms.

We had more or less agreed not to take things any further for the time being.

I needed to get out of that bed before I did something _further_.

In my attempt to remove his arm from my waist without disturbing his slumber, I somehow managed to inadvertently grind my ass into his erection.

He made an incoherent mumbling noise and his grip on me tightened, his hand sliding to my hip and pinning against him.

I held my breath as his nose grazed my shoulder, moving up the side of my neck. His stubble tickled at my exposed skin, making my insides blaze with desire.

“If you keep that up, I might get the wrong idea about what it is that you want from me.” I had tried for light and teasing but the words came out breathy and full of want. His hands felt _really_ good on me. And his breath on my ear—

“Renna?” His voice was thick with sleep.

I shifted onto my back so I could look up into his face. My head was cradled on his bicep.

His hand ended up on my stomach. So tantalizingly close to where I wanted it.

He blinked, forcing his eyes to focus. His gaze slid to my lips. “What—“

I raised my hand to his cheek. My thumb traced over the scar on his lip. “I want you to kiss me.”

His gaze shifted up to my eyes, searching. “Perhaps we should—“

I already knew what he was going to say. “I don’t want to _wait_. I want _you_. Now.”

He let out a shaky breath and his hand came to rest on my cheek

I stared up at him, eyes wide, heart pounding.

This was it.

His thumb lingered against my split lip, regret seeping into his eyes as his gaze swept over my injuries. “I promised to keep you safe and I—“

“You did keep me safe though.” I insisted, letting my tongue dart out to taste his skin. “If you hadn’t shown up when you did—“

I shivered and my breath hitched as he withdrew his thumb from my lip and trailed it gently down my chin, then down my throat, between my breasts, continuing down my body until his hand to came to a stop at my hip.

Then his mouth was on mine.

Hard.

Desperate.

Exactly like it had been at the warehouse.

The sting from my split lip as his mouth moved on mine was a delicious contrast to the heat rapidly building at my core.

I managed to get one leg free of the blankets, hooking it over his hip.

I let out a small moan, pulling myself closer to him.

I needed more.

More kissing.

More closeness.

More friction.

More _him_.

I needed to feel him inside me.

I kicked the blanket the rest of the way off and pushed him onto his back, moving with him to straddle his hips.

His touch skimmed the outside of my thigh. He paused, his calloused grip flexing slightly against my bare skin. He pulled back from our kiss, his expression searching. “When did you—“

I grinned down at him playfully, my hair cascading over my shoulder in bright red waves, having come loose from its braid while we slept. “I took my pants off when I came to bed last night.”

His eyes widened, lips parting slightly. “Maker’s breath. So you’ve been—”

“Too much talking. Not enough tongue.” I reclaimed his mouth and ground my hips down against his.

He let out a groan, the end of his sentence long forgotten.

My tongue darted into his mouth.

He sat up, making quick work of removing his shirt as I shamelessly writhed on his lap. His hands settled on my hips, guiding me into a more steady rhythm. 

My hands gripped his shoulders tight, keeping me upright.

At the rate we were going, I would be coming before he even made it inside me. He didn’t seem to have a problem with that based on the encouraging way his hands rocked my hips against his rock hard length.

One of my hands dropped from his shoulder, drawing a lazy path down his well-muscled chest to his well-muscled stomach.

My fingers stalled their languid exploration and I sucked in a deep breath as he kissed his way down my jaw.

One of his hands slipped under my borrowed shirt, sliding slowly up my stomach, and following the curves of my body until he had one breast cupped firmly in his hand.

I moaned as his fingers found my nipple and his teeth claimed my neck.

I was so done with being clothed.

I wanted to be naked, and I wanted him to be naked too.

My hands moved to the hem of my shirt as his fingers hooked into the front of my panties, his touch barely a whisper against—

“Oi! Ren!”

We had approximately three seconds warning before Sera burst through the door.

She looked a little worse for wear, but at least she was in once piece.

I stared at her like a halla caught in the headlights, fingertips still caught in the hem of my shirt, stomach partially exposed.

Cullen’s reaction was a little more panicked than mine had been.

“Maker’s breath!” He exclaimed in surprise as he withdrew his hands and all but threw me from his lap.

I landed on my side on the bed.

I was secretly thrilled by how easily he could toss me around.

The man was _strong_.

Not that I was particularly heavy.

Sera looked between us, amusement dancing across her face. “Were you two plannin’ on stayin’ up here all day gettin’ busy?”

I let out a sigh and sat up. “Sera, I love you and I’m very glad that you’re all right. But can you please get the fuck out? _Now_.”

“All right, all right. I’m goin’. Have fun, ya crazy kids.” She—thankfully—closed the door behind her.

I flopped back on the bed, arms covering my face. “So…mood ruined?”

Cullen leaned up on his elbow, “This might not be the best location for this sort of…activity.”

“Can we just…I dunno kiss some more and see where that leads us?”

“I’m not sure that that’s—“

“Shh.” I pulled his face down to mine, curling my fingers into his hair.

Then his lips were back on mine and all was right with the world.

He let out a little growl as I hooked my leg back over his hip and pulled, trying to not-so-subtly encourage him between my legs.

Thankfully he got the hint, pushing me back into the mattress, his erection pressing against my core as his weight settled over me.

Even through his sweat pants he had to feel how wet I was.

_I_ could feel how wet I was.

He managed to get my shirt up over my breasts before there was a knock at the door.

“Oh, come on.” I groaned. “Their ability to cock block really is uncanny.”

“Renna? Cullen? Breakfast. Now.” This time our interupter was Bull.

I was tempted to ignore him, and based on the way that his fingers teased along the edge of my panties as his mouth kissed a line from my stomach up to my exposed breasts, it appeared that Cullen was too.

“We gotta get this shit show on the road,” Bull called through the closed door. “Get your asses in gear.”

“Fuck.” I grumbled, disentangling myself from Cullen’s limbs.

“I suppose we’ll have to take a rain check on… _this_.” I gestured between the two of us.

Cullen nodded, cheeks flushed and expression slightly dazed.

I rolled off the bed and away from the allure of his embrace.

Cullen stayed right where he was, hands folded conspicuously in his lap.

I bit my lip to hide my grin as I looked back at him. “You coming?”

He pursed his lips slightly at my choice of words. “I…will join you in a moment.”

I nodded toward his lap. “I can take care of that for you if you think we can make it to the kitchen on our own.”

His face turned red. “No, that’s—It’s quite all right.”

“Oh.” The smile fell from my lips and I couldn’t help the little bit of insecurity that crept into my voice. “Are you sure?”

He picked up on it immediately. “It’s not that I don’t—I definitely do— _want_ you to. It’s—I just—I don’t want to rush things. I would prefer to take my time with you.”

“Oh.” I felt my face heat. “Then, I should probably leave, because if you keep saying things like that, then I can’t be held responsible for my actions. I’ll see you in the kitchen.”

He just nodded as I pulled on my pants.

I met Bull out in the hallway, closing the door behind me.

Bull raised his eyebrow. “Cullen not coming?”

I snorted before muttering, “Neither of us did.”

“That’s unfortunate.” He looked amused. “So you didn’t—“

“Get the chance to be fucked senseless by an ex-Templar? No. I did not.”

“Damn, kid. Dorian figured the two of you would be going at it like rabbits the second that door closed last night.”

 

In the light of day, the kitchen was bright and cheery, everything painted in warm inviting tones. It looked like it belonged in a completely different house when compared to the dark decadent tones the guest room had been decorated in.

There was a sliding glass door that led to a patio and a decent sized outdoor swimming pool. Even though there was snow on the ground, the pool wasn’t covered.

Sera was sitting at the table, shoveling some sort of sugary cereal into her mouth.

Dorian was standing at the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee in his hand, watching her with horrified fascination.

He was the absolute portrait of perfectly put together. His hair was done in the same painstakingly dishevelled manner that it had been the previous evening, and his mustache was once again meticulously curled at the ends. A thin layer of eyeliner rimmed his eyes. He was wearing a white, long sleeved, linen shirt tucked into beige pants. The top few buttons of his shirt were undone, revealing bronzed collarbones.

“Coffee?” I asked, breaking Dorian’s trance.

“Help yourself.” He nodded to the pot. His gaze swept over me, and his expression turned knowing. “You look positively rumpled. Did you and your strapping ex-Templar have fun?”

“We would have if _some people_ would have left us alone this morning.” I muttered, looking between Sera and Bull semi-sourly.

He looked aghast. “You had _all night_.”

“We talked all night.”

“Shame on you for wasting it then.” He lamented with a sigh.

“It wasn’t a waste. Life isn’t all about sex, you know.” Easy for me to say when I wasn’t getting any.

“Spoken like someone who isn’t having it.” Dorian sighed and shook his head.

It was sort of funny that we were on the same wavelength on the matter.

He left me standing alone at the counter to go have a hushed conversation with Bull over by the window. Dorian’s expression was sour as he pulled out his wallet and handed a fifty-dollar bill to a very smug looking Bull.

“Assholes.” I muttered with a glare.

I was distracted from the assholes in the corner by Cullen’s entrance into the suddenly-overly-crowded-feeling kitchen.

“Coffee?” He asked in much the same tone I had only moments earlier.

I grinned up at him, passing him an empty cup.

His fingers lingered against mine.

Desire immediately pooled in my stomach as I looked up into his eyes. His honey colored depths reflected the longing that I felt.

I bit my lip. Apparently I needed to avoid touching him until we were able to relieve some of the sexual tension.

Good to know.

Bull’s voice broke through the lust haze. “Can the two of you please stop eye-fucking in my kitchen?”

Cullen’s face went red, and I’m fairly certain that mine was sporting a matching hue.

“I’m going to go over there now.” I indicated the other end of the kitchen as I relinquished the cup to his capable hands.

Cullen nodded; eyes still alight with want despite the embarrassment staining his cheeks.

I grabbed a banana from the bowl of fruit on the counter as I made my hasty retreat. I took a seat beside Sera on one of the benches.

“Hey! We match!” She exclaimed, as she finally looked up from her cereal. She gestured excitedly between the matching bandages on our foreheads. Apparently she hadn’t gotten a good look at me during our brief interaction earlier and she had been too absorbed in her cereal to notice when I entered the kitchen.

I peeled my banana. “What happened to you?”

“These guys grabbed me and I threw one of ‘em just like we learned in that class ya made me take, the other one snuck up on me from the side while I was kickin' the absolute shite out of his friend. He beaned me with his gun.”

“At least you have a cool story for your head wound. You got kidnapped and you were injured trying to fend off your attackers. I was taken out by an errant bleach bottle while hiding in a supply closet.” I sighed, taking a dainty bite out of my banana.

Cullen let out a soft curse, drawing everyone’s attention.

Sera snorted and raised an eyebrow. “Ya okay there, Cully Wully?”

“Yes. I just spilled some coffee.”

“It would appear that he was a little distracted while pouring.” Dorian said with a pointed look in my direction.

“What did I do?” I asked indignantly.

Dorian nodded to the banana in my hand.

“Seriously?” I glared at Dorian, and then looked over at Cullen who was very pointedly avoiding eye contact.

“Oh, grow up. All of you.” I took another bite, making sure to catch Cullen’s eye.

Sera tossed her napkin at me. “Yer gross. Get a room.”

“We had a room. Didn’t seem to matter.” I rolled up her napkin and tossed it right back with a laugh. Being away from her the past few weeks had been tougher than I realized. I had missed her.

If something had happened to her, I never would have forgiven myself. I felt my face fall. I wrapped my arm around her back, resting my head on her shoulder.

“What’re ya doin’?” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Can’t a girl eat in peace?”

“I’m just so glad you’re okay.” I couldn’t help the little sniffling sound that escaped my lips.

She set down her spoon and returned my embrace. “Ugh. Ya better not be cryin’, Ren. I’m fine. I promise.”

“This is all my fault though. They grabbed you because of _me_. You got hurt and—” I made a hiccupping noise, as a few stray tears ran down my cheeks.

“S’not yer—“

“Sera.” Bull shook his head.

Sera rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh. “I’m _fine._ Now, no more cryin’.”

I looked from Sera to Bull and back again. “What was that about?”

“Don’t know wot yer talkin’ ‘bout.” She wiped at my un-bandaged cheek before abruptly changing the subject. “Why were ya and Detective Hotpants over there sharin’ a room?”

Cullen made an indignant spluttering noise at the new nickname that would definitely be sticking.

Sera continued, oblivious to Cullen’s discomfort, “There’s like five spare rooms here.”

“ _Five spare rooms_?” I echoed, raising my voice and glaring at Dorian, tears completely forgotten. “You said—“

“Dorian was trying to play matchmaker,” Bull interjected loudly with a laugh.

Dorian took a seat on my other side, speaking in a hushed tone. “I really did have your best interest at heart, my dear.”

“Is that what you call betting on whether or not I’ll get laid?” I hissed in return, not _actually_ mad at him, but enjoying playing the part.

“Oh." His expression turned contrite. "You saw that, did you?”

I rolled my eyes. “You weren’t exactly being inconspicuous.”

Cullen took a seat in a chair on the empty side of the table. “I don’t want to know, do I?”

“Nope,” Bull said. “It’ll probably make you blush like a schoolgirl.”

“So, Detective Hotpants,” Sera interjected, waving her spoon at Cullen, “how was dealin’ with Renna after she got stabbed?”

Cullen’s gaze flicked to Sera, mild irritation causing him to frown. “She wasn’t stabbed. And please stop calling me that.”

I grinned at him. “It’s too late, Detective Hotpants. The name has stuck.”

He gave me an unimpressed look and sighed, turning back to Sera. “There wasn’t anything unusual about the experience. Why?”

“She faints when she gets a paper cut.”

I felt my face go red. “One time, Sera! One fucking time! And you won’t let me forget it! I was seven! And I had low blood sugar, and—“

“As amusing as this all is,” Dorian interrupted, “we really should be getting to the station.”

I turned to him with a look of confusion. “You’re coming too?”

He nodded.

“But you weren’t even there…” I realized that I had been unconscious through most of the daring rescue and I had missed Bull’s involvement entirely. “Were you there?”

“Oh, heavens no. I don’t like to get my hands dirty if I can avoid it. But I have an abundance of information on Corypheus that I’ve been dying to share with my southern counterparts. This seems like as good a time as any to dump it on their doorstep.”

 

Ten minutes later, the five of us piled into Bull’s Qunari-sized SUV.

The amount of space in the vehicle seemed utterly ridiculous until Bull climbed into the driver’s seat. Then I realized that the utterly ridiculous amount of space was an absolutely necessary amount of space specifically designed to accommodate the horns and sheer size of a fully grown Qunari.

Dorian sat in the passenger seat.

I sat in the back, between Sera and Cullen.

I kept my hands studiously to myself.

It didn’t do much in the way of helping though.

Every time we went over a bump, or turned a corner, I found myself jostled into Cullen.

I started to suspect that Bull was hitting certain bumps on purpose, because I never once jostled Sera’s way. I sent him a quiet glare in the rearview mirror. He gave a cheeky grin in reply.

Bastard.

We arrived at the Police station after a fifteen-minute drive.

Sera fell to the back of the group as we headed up the stairs. “Shite. I really don’t wanna go in there.”

“It’s okay, Sera.” I put my hand on her back reassuringly. “I’m right here.”

“I know, Ren. Just, ugh. Bad things. Piss.”

She didn’t have a very good track record with the Police. She had been held overnight at the station in our hometown a few times for ‘Disorderly Conduct’ when she was a minor. Each time she had been released and let off with a warning, one of the perks of having a rich as fuck foster mother. Also, the last time she had been in a Police station had been with me...and that hadn't been a pleasant experience for anyone involved.

We entered the building single file.

The officer at the desk—Officer Jim again—looked surprised to see such a large group crowding the small lobby. His gaze lingered suspiciously on Bull, who smiled and gave him a saucy little wave.

“Detective Pentaghast is expecting us.” Cullen informed Officer Jim, who buzzed us in with a wary nod.

We followed behind Cullen through the twisting maze of hallways until we came to a room filled with desks. There were detectives scattered about the room.

Detective Pentaghast was at one end, with her back to us.

“Cassandra?” Cullen asked tentatively as we approached her desk.

She hurriedly shoved a book into her desk drawer but not before I managed to get a look at the cover.

I let out a surprised laugh. “Was that… _Guns and Badges_?”

“Of course not.” She turned to face me with a huff. “What do you take me for? Some silly simpering housewife?”

I held my hands up in surrender. “I thought the cover looked familiar. My mistake.”

“Yes, it is.” She crossed her arms.

I mirrored her action with an amused smile. “That’s too bad though. I know Varric Tethras.”

Her face lit up and she uncrossed her arms. “What? How? You must tell me!”

Apparently with that single admission, she was already done with denying that she had been reading the _fifth_ book in Varric’s smut series.

“I work for him. Well, technically ‘worked’.”

“You must introduce us!” She exclaimed.

“I’ll see if I can set something up.”

It was then that she seemed to realize that Cullen and I were not alone. The excitement melted from her face, replaced by her standard grouchy glare. “Cullen, would you care to tell me just what in the name of the Maker is going on here?”

“Cassandra, this is Detective Dorian Pavus from Minrathous, and this is his husband, the Iron Bull.” Cullen gestured to each of them respectively.

“And the girl?” Detective Pentaghast’s eyes landed on Sera.

“Miss Lavellan’s roommate, Sera.”

Sera gave a half-hearted little wave, her face clearly expressing the fact that she would rather be literally anywhere other than right there.

Detective Pentaghast surveyed our group as if trying to decide where to start first. Her gaze lingered on Bull, which made sense because he definitely had the largest physical presence. “The Iron Bull? You are the bouncer from the Divine Conclave.”

Bull nodded. “Ex bouncer. I don’t imagine that there are too many one eyed Qunari running around the city, so with all that happened yesterday, I would assume that my cover there has been blown.”

Detective Pentaghast’s eyebrow rose questioningly. “Cover?”

“I’ll fill you in once we're somewhere a little more _private_. It’s not something to discuss in mixed company.”

“What—“

“Let’s start with me, shall we?” Dorian interrupted. “Since I have next to nothing to do with this particular part of the _situation_ at hand, I will keep my narrative brief. Even though I love to talk about myself. I _am_ my favorite subject, after all. But I digress. I have been following Corypheus’ operation for nearly a decade now. I have dedicated my entire career to bringing him down. I have hundreds of pages of case files on Corypheus’ movements and contacts in Tevinter that I would be happy to have couriered to you, Detective Pentaghast.”

Detective Pentaghast nodded. “Thank you. That would be appreciated.”

“Now, Sera, Bull and I will go get a cup of what passes for coffee around here if you wish to start your questioning with Detective Rutherford and Miss Lavellan.”

At Detective Pentaghast’s nod of assent, Dorian, Bull, and Sera disappeared, leaving Cullen and I with Detective Pentaghast.

“Shall we start with you, Miss Lavellan?” She asked. “You are the catalyst of all of this, after all.”

I gave her a tight smile. “Thanks. That’s exactly how I want to be remembered. Especially by the Police.”

She chose to ignore my sarcasm. “Follow me please.”

“Where are we going?”

“To one of the interview rooms.”

“I think you mean interrogation rooms.” I muttered. “I would feel more comfortable if Cu—“ I didn’t want to get him in trouble for being too familiar with me. “If _Detective Rutherford_ were present with me.”

After a moment of consideration she nodded. “All right. But you will present the events in your own words.”

I followed her down the hall, with Cullen trailing slightly behind me.

She stopped before a door and gestured me inside.

I took a seat at the table.

Cullen leaned against the wall near the door.

“Begin when you are ready, please.” Detective Pentaghast stood on the same side of the table that my chair was on.

Did she not know how intimidating that was?

She leaned against the table, about a foot from where my elbows rested on it.

Did she not care about personal space?

Ugh.

I relayed all of the events of the previous night as succinctly as I could, starting with the phone call from Corypheus and ending with my sudden bout of unconsciousness. I left out the part where Cullen and I had made out like teenagers in the janitor’s closet.

Detective Pentaghast absorbed the information for a moment before she turned to face Cullen. “Your turn. From the beginning.”

He stayed by the wall. “Renna received the phone call from Corypheus, I left her at the safe house while I gathered some… _supplies_ …from the onsite storeroom.”

So _that_ was where he had disappeared to. Apparently there was a storeroom filled with guns and tiny little recording devices somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the safe house.

“Why did you not call for back up?” She asked disapprovingly.

“There wasn’t any time.”

“You should have _made_ time.” It was clear from her tone that she didn't appreciate his breach of protocol.

“We were under a very strict time constraint. And I didn’t want to potentially compromise Sera’s chances by getting too many people involved.” He met her disapproval evenly, crossing his arms. “I made a judgment call. Are you going to officially reprimand me for my choices?”

Her perpetual frown deepened. “No. I will not.”

His posture relaxed slightly, and he mostly just looked tired. “Good, because it’s done, Cassandra. I can’t change the way things happened.”

She sighed. “Very well. Continue.”

“I dropped Renna off two blocks from the drop site that Corypheus had indicated. When Corypheus’ men abducted her, I followed them. They pulled up to the warehouse at approximately 6:20 pm. I observed and entered after them at approximately 6:25 pm. I ran into the Iron Bull in the entryway. He told me that he had seen Corypheus’ men take Sera, and that he had followed Sera’s kidnappers to the warehouse. He claimed to be working with the Inquisition, and provided identification to validate his claims.”

Detective Pentaghast’s face took on a pinch of annoyance at the mention of ‘the Inquisition’, and she let out a disgusted noise.

I wanted to ask what the hell ‘the Inquisition’ was, but I didn’t get the chance before Cullen continued.

“He suggested that we split up to look for Renna and Sera. I took the left hallway, and Bull took the right. I gave him strict instructions to incapacitate instead of kill should he come across any hostiles.”

So, Bull’s presence at the warehouse had been the reason that Cullen wasn’t overly worried about tending to my wounds in the middle of the ridiculously huge room.

“I managed to get through the warehouse without coming across anyone else. I kept close tabs on Renna through the wire that I had placed on her. I waited for the opportune moment to—”

“I have listened to the recording.” Detective Pentaghast interrupted. “Why did you choose then to make your presence known? Three seconds longer and we would have had his name.”

“Three seconds longer and Renna would have been dead.” He responded flatly. “When I entered the room with Samson at gunpoint, Corypheus had Renna lifted up off the ground with a knife pressed against her face. I asked him to put her down; instead of complying he raised his weapon to strike. I assessed the situation, and I saw no other course of action, so I shot him. Then I incapacitated Samson. Once he was secured to an exposed pipe; I tended to Renna’s wounds then I placed her in a vacant supply closet for her safety.”

“I have one question before you continue.” Detective Pentaghast ran an exasperated hand down her face. “Why? Why would you take out Corypheus and leave Samson alive? Were you being soft on him because of your time in his inner circle?”

Cullen looked aggravated at the suggestion. “Of course not Cassandra. You’ve heard the recording; you know that Corypheus fully intended to kill Renna, a _civilian under my protection_. Samson was far less of a threat in the moment. He has much—if not all—of the same information that Corypheus did. And he is infinitely more likely to cooperate. May I continue with my report?”

“Carry on.”

“After placing Renna in a secure location, I met back up with the Iron Bull and we proceeded to search for Sera. The Iron Bull had wounded a few men; some had simply surrendered to him. The rest we found in the process of moving their lyrium production equipment from the back room of the warehouse. Sera was being held in a room above the production room, bruised and battered, but otherwise fine. Once the warehouse was secure, I called it in. Then I went back to find Renna. She was unconscious in the supply closet. Once back up arrived, the Iron Bull suggested that we take Renna and Sera to his place to receive medical attention as he has a doctor on his staff. I stayed with Renna to ensure that there was no lasting damage, and to continue providing her protective custody.”

Detective Pentaghast pulled a notepad from her pants pocket. “I think we’ve covered almost everything that we needed to cover. Except for one thing…would you happen to know anything about Samson’s head injury?”

“I incapacitated him with a blow to the back of his head.”

“I was referring to the bruising at his temple.”

“Oh,” I said, speaking up for the first time since Cullen had started his retelling of events. “I did that. I elbowed him.”

“You did what?” Cullen and Detective Pentaghast said in unison as their gazes swung towards me.

I opened my mouth to defend myself, then I realized that my actions weren’t exactly defensible from a sane point of view. What the fuck had I been thinking? I could have died. Hindsight was a hell of a thing. “Holy fuck. I elbowed the gun-wielding maniac in the face. I am sooo stupid.”

Detective Pentaghast nodded sympathetically. “As long as you are aware of the foolishness of your actions, there’s no point in dwelling on the matter.”

“Yeah, in case you’ve forgotten, let me remind you that you’re talking to the girl who got drunk and stole some drugs from drug lords and videotaped them _murdering_ someone. I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’m _not_ fully aware of the stupidity of the things I’m doing until long after I’ve finished doing the stupid thing.”

“That is…a very valid point,” she said after a moment of consideration. “Regardless, it would appear that the danger has passed.”

“What about the Fade guy?” I asked.

“We have no reason to believe that he has the means to come after you.”

“Oh. Okay.” I felt myself frown. It seemed like maybe this might not be the end of everything, but I didn’t want to argue with her though. She was scary.

“After our officers have completed a thorough sweep of your home, you may return.”

“That’s great news.” I hoped that my smile looked genuine.

“We will have an officer survey your home for a week in the event that there are any stragglers left over from Corypheus’ operation.”

I nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Once he has finished giving his statement, Detective Rutherford will accompany you to the safe house to retrieve your things.”

It was officially over.

Corypheus was dead.

Samson was in custody.

My life could go back to normal.

I found myself selfishly—stupidly—wishing that it wouldn’t.

Normal meant back to my old apartment.

Normal meant back to my old routine.

Normal meant no more Cullen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long one. Apparently 5000+ words is my jam right now, so I'm just gonna roll with it.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	16. Peace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know what you're thinking: _longer than a week in between updates, there must be smut in this chapter!_
> 
> And you would be 100% correct!
> 
> So, sorry for the delay, but there are sexy times ahead (along with some potentially awkwardly written dirty talk), and that’s really the important thing, right?

Normal.

I could feel my world crumbling around me.

Normal.

Normal wasn’t supposed to feel so _empty_.

I tried to remind myself that normal was a _good thing_.

_Going home was a **good thing**._

I stood abruptly, chair scraping the floor, and drawing a surprised look from both Detective Pentaghast and Cullen.

I clasped my hands in front of myself to keep from fidgeting. I hoped that Cullen couldn’t tell that I was avoiding looking him in the eyes. “If you don’t need anything else from me, Detective Pentaghast, I could use some air.”

“You are free to go for now,” she said with a nod of dismissal. “Have an officer escort you outside.”

Yeah, I wouldn’t be doing that. “Of course. I’ll only be gone a minute.”

Cullen stepped away from the wall. “I will—”

Detective Pentaghast silenced him with a look.

He sighed and took a seat in the chair I had vacated. “I will stay right here because Cassandra is obviously not finished speaking with me.”

Once I reached the Police station’s front steps, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself.

I really should have been focused on the fact that I could go home and get back into my old routine. Or even the fact that there was still some drug lord out there that wanted me for unknown and most likely nefarious purposes.

But all I could focus on in that moment was Cullen.

Things had just started to happen between us, and now I was facing the prospect of never seeing him again.

Over the past seven years I had spent so much time and energy focused on building up these walls to protect myself from getting hurt, and Sera had been the only one I had let in. In less than two weeks Cullen had smashed down my defenses, worming his way dangerously close to my heart.

Realistically, of course a part of me knew that I didn’t have to be living with him to spend time with him, but at that moment it felt like everything was just sort of falling apart.

I would be going back to my boring old life, and he would continue his exciting life as a detective spending his days with damsels who got themselves into distressing situations.

Why would he want to continue seeing me when he could have anyone he wanted? Someone much less damaged with far less baggage.

Aaaand, I was falling into familiar old patterns of thinking. The low sense of self-worth that I had had beaten into me my entire life rearing its ugly head.

It was no good dwelling on things that I had no control over.

Whether I lived with Cullen or not shouldn’t dictate the outcome of our relationship. And if he didn’t think I was worth his time, that was his problem, not mine.

I needed a distraction from my thoughts, so I pulled out my phone and texted Varric.

**[10:39 am] Me:** Hey, Varric. You interested in meeting a fan of your porn books?  
**[10:40 am] Varric:** Depends. She cute?  
**[10:40 am] Me:** What makes you think it’s a she? ;)  
**[10:40 am] Varric:** Don’t mess with me, Poppy. >:(  
**[10:41 am] Me:** Fine, fine. She’s a she. And she’s gorgeous. And terrifying.  
**[10:41 am] Varric:** My kind of woman.  
**[10:41 am] Me:** She’s a detective with the Police.  
**[10:42am] Varric:** D:  
**[10:42 am] Varric:** No.  
**[10:42 am] Me:** Oh, come on. She just wants to meet you for coffee. Pick your brain about your books. Pretty sure she isn’t your typical groupie.  
**[10:44 am] Varric:** Fine, Poppy. But you owe me one.  
**[10:44 am] Me:** Thanks, Varric. Coffee. Tomorrow afternoon. I’ll text you the time and place after I talk with her.  


“Miss Lavellan.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

There was no mistaking that Orlesian accent. Leliana emerged from the shadows behind one of the columns on the steps. She was just as pretty as she had been during our initial meeting in the dimly lit interrogation room. She was dressed in a purple leather motorcycle jacket and matching leather pants. Her poker straight orange hair hung loose around her jaw. Dark eyeliner ringed calculating blue eyes. She gave off an easy air of intimidation, more subtle than Detective Pentaghast’s, but slightly more terrifying. I got the distinct impression that she could end me without lifting so much as a finger.

“I apologize if I startled you,” she continued, a pleasant smile on her pouty lips. “Do you have a moment?”

“How can I help you Lel…er..." I couldn’t just call her ‘Leliana’. It was way too familiar. And she was far too frightening. "Miss…ex Police Officer/Warden?” 

She let out a small musical laugh at my fumbling. “Ex Police _Detective_ /Warden, actually, if you want to be technical with your rambling.”

The laugh did nothing to soothe my nerves. “Sorry, I never _technically_ got your name…or your title.”

“That is because we were not properly introduced the last time we spoke. I am Leliana Nightingale. Officially, I have no agency. Unofficially, I am with the Inquisition.”

My face scrunched up in confusion. “That’s the second time I’ve heard that name today. I’m afraid I don’t know what that is.”

“Nor should you. Before her passing, Divine Justinia formed the Inquisition. We are a covert group. Our sole job is to try to restore order in this chaotic world.”

“Were you close with Divine Justinia?” Why the hell was I making awkward small talk with one of the most intimidating people I had ever met?

She nodded slightly, eyes downcast. “She was my mentor before I joined the Police force.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“What happened to Justinia was…regrettable.” She glanced back up at me, all traces of grief gone, hidden behind a perfectly crafted mask of neutrality. “However, that is not what I wished to discuss.”

“Then what is?” Why would she be interested in me? I couldn’t tell her anything that she couldn’t find out on her own from the Police given a small amount of time.

“Justinia was at the Divine Conclave that night for a very specific reason. She had heard rumors that Corypheus was meeting with the man responsible for creating ‘the Fade’. She was hoping to bring down the entire operation before ‘the Fade’ could be widely distributed.”

That was information that Cullen and Detective Pentaghast didn’t appear to have. “Why was the head of the Chantry so interested in bringing down a drug empire?”

“She was tired of sitting idly by while her people fell to addiction and death.”

“Still, is that not what the Police are for?”

“Before this mess, the Police hadn’t had a new lead in over a year. Now with the Inquisition's involvement, and _your_ involvement, Corypheus is dead, his lyrium operation is hobbled. We are one step closer to identifying the man behind ‘the Fade’. Justinia would have seen her life as a fair trade off. We have been tracking Corypheus’ movements for a while now. I wanted to thank you for your assistance in taking him down.”

“Oh.” I fidgeted uncomfortably. “I really didn’t do much of anything…just sort of drunkenly stumbled into the wrong room. Cullen is really—”

She shook her head. “Your actions have allowed us to make more progress in the past two weeks than in the last ten years combined.”

I bit my lip. “Should I be worried about him? The Fade guy?”

Her pouty lips pulled into a slight frown. “Normally I would say no, but you seem to attract danger wherever you go. You're lucky to have Cullen looking out for you until this situation is completely sorted out.”

“Oh, um no, actually. As far as Detective Pentaghast is concerned, the situation _is_ completely sorted out. She’s removed me from protective custody.”

The frown deepened. “That is perhaps unwise. It would appear that she is tempting fate.”

I gave a resigned little half shrug. “She said that the Police had no reason to believe that he has the means to come after me.”

An irritated sigh escaped her lips. “That’s because they have not been listening.”

“Renna, there you are.”

I jumped about a foot in the air and turned to face the newcomer.

Bull had joined us on the steps.

I had to wonder how the hell a man that size moved that quietly. Did everyone around me have some sort of stealth training that I was lacking?

He turned to Leliana and nodded. “Hey, Red.”

I looked back and forth between the two of them confused, then I remembered what Cullen had said. “You’re with the Inquisition.”

He squared his shoulders and crossed his arms over his massive chest as if he expected me to have a problem with that revelation. “Yup.”

“So you were at the Divine Conclave—“

“Because there was a rumor going around that Corypheus was conducting business out of the back room. I had a couple of guys working the place. You remember Krem? He’s my second.”

Did that mean—“Is Sera—“

“She’s a member too. They’d be crazy not to take her with that contact list of hers.”

I felt an acute sense of betrayal stab through me. “How long—“

“That’s something you’re going to have to take up with her.”

I frowned. An answer like that most likely meant she knew about Corypheus’ connection to the Divine Conclave when she insisted on taking me out there.

“Did you have anything for me, Bull?” Leliana asked.

“There’s a recording. From last night. Haven’t heard it yet.”

“A recording?” Her eyes lit with renewed interest.

Bull nodded.

“I will take care of it.” A mischievous twinkle entered her eye and she produced a business from thin air, handing it to me. “It was nice talking with you, Miss Lavellan. Should you wish to discuss anything further, here is my contact information.”

I was starting to think that I needed to get myself a stack of business cards before I could be considered a real adult. I looked down at the small rectangular chunk of thick black cardstock. It was embossed with silver writing.

_Leliana Nightingale_  
_Independent Contractor_

The other side of the card sported an email address and a phone number.

I knew when I was being dismissed, so I nodded and made my way back inside.

Cullen and Cassandra were standing by her desk.

Dorian and Sera were still MIA.

Cullen gave me a brief, almost annoyed-looking, nod before disappearing out of the room.

That was weird.

Had I done something to upset him?

Was he mad at me?

Or was he just feigning aloofness so as to not tip off Detective Pentaghast to our less-than platonic feelings for one another?

“Your timing is impeccable.” Detective Pentaghast greeted. “I have just finished speaking with Cullen. I have sent him to find your roommate so that I may take her statement. You and he may leave once he returns.”

“Before Cullen and I go, Detective,” I put a hand on her arm to stall her, removing it quickly when she glared at the offending appendage, “I’ve spoken to Varric. Are you busy tomorrow afternoon?”

She thought for a moment before nodding her head decisively. “3:30 pm. There is a coffee shop a block east of here.”

I nodded. “All right, I’ll let him know.”

She hesitated. “Perhaps you should come with us.”

That was unexpected. “Do I detect a hint of nerves, Detective?”

“Of course not,” she scoffed.

“Are you sure? We could reschedule if you’d like? Give you a chance to—”

“No!” She flushed at her outburst. Looking around the room conspicuously before lowering her voice, “Anyone who could create such terrible, wonderful, smutty literature—I _need_ to meet him.”

Uh oh. Perhaps I had been wrong about her being one of Varric’s typical groupies. Well, he would probably be fine. Probably. “Well then. I will let him know.”

Cullen returned with Sera and Bull in tow. Apparently Bull had finished speaking with Leliana and circled back to meet up with Sera. I wasn’t sure where Dorian had disappeared to.

“See you later, Cullen.” Bull boomed just loud enough to draw attention.

I stifled a laugh against the back of my hand as Bull—none too gently—patted Cullen on the ass.

“Maker’s breath! Boundaries, Bull!” Cullen sputtered as he straightened himself.

I gave Bull and Sera a wave and a tight-lipped smile. She had been hiding things from me, and at that moment, I wasn't feeling particularly friendly towards my best friend in the entire world. We would be having a very serious talk when we got home.

Cullen led me out to the front steps.

As we stood on the steps, I realized something. “Oh. Right we carpooled here. How are we—“

Bull’s SUV pulled up and the passenger side window rolled down. I could see Dorian leaning as far as he could across the seats. He looked comically small in the driver’s seat, almost as if he were a child pretending to drive his father’s car.

“Need a lift, my dears?” He called.

“That would be fantastic, thanks!” I called back, scampering down the stairs. “Shotgun!”

When I opened the passenger door, I was kind of disappointed to see that Dorian wasn’t sitting on a phone book and using stilts to work the gas and the brakes.

Cullen hadn’t tried to argue for the front seat, and he was silent all the way to Dorian’s, which was all right, because Dorian was more than happy to fill the silence with idle prattle.

 

Cullen’s silence didn’t really start to bother me until we were sitting alone in his car, halfway back to the safe house.

I fidgeted nervously in my seat. “Is something—“

He cut me off, grip tight on the steering wheel. “You promised not to take any unnecessary risks with your safety. What were you thinking?”

Oh. He was upset about what I had done at the warehouse. “I wasn’t thinking. I was running on instinct, and instinct told me to elbow Samson in the face.”

He snorted. “Your instincts are abysmal.”

“When it comes to high risk situations, absolutely. You’ll have no arguments from me on _that_ matter.”

We fell back into an uncomfortable silence, which was fine really because I had a lot on my mind. Leliana had said some things that had me questioning the Police's choices regarding my personal safety. We pulled into the parking garage before I spoke again.

“Have you known Leliana long?” I asked.

“In terms of years, yes. But I don’t know her particularly well. She was with the Warden team that broke up the events at Kinloch Hold.”

I winced. She was probably a bit of a sore spot then.

“Why do you ask?” He didn’t sound bothered, just curious.

“Just…you know, reasons. Can her information be trusted?”

He thought for a moment. “That would depend on the information. When did you speak with her?"

"She was waiting for me on the steps at the Police station."

"What did she say to you?”

“That I’m most likely still in danger. And that she's been warning the Police, but nobody is listening.”

“The Inquisition thinks it knows best. If Cassandra says that you’re safe, then you’re safe. And even if the man behind the Fade was somehow able to pull together the broken pieces of the lyrium trade, you have nothing to fear. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“You won’t always be there though. You’re going to go back to your life, and I’m going to go back to mine.” My words came out flat, emotionless.

He didn’t say anything after that, leading me back up to the apartment in detached silence.

I leaned my forehead against the door as I locked it.

Something in the air shifted.

We were finally, totally and completely alone.

Awkward resignation about the fact that our time together was coming to an end turned to crackling lust.

I turned to face him.

He had seemingly noticed the same thing, judging by the way he was standing by the kitchen counter, uncertainty written on his features as he fiddled with the label on the empty wine bottle that I had left there. “Renna, I just want you to know—we don’t—that is to say—I don’t— _you_ don’t have to—I don’t expect anything from you. What almost happened at Dorian’s was…all very ‘in the moment’ and—“

“I like you, Cullen. A lot.” I stared down at the floor.

“I—“

“You should probably let me finish before you continue that thought…” I took a deep breath and my next words came out in a rush. “I—This thing between you and me…it isn’t just about sex to me. Even though the whole Corypheus thing is over…I want to keep seeing you. I like spending time with you.”

“I—“

“If all you want from me is sex, then it’s probably best if we just pack up the safe house and part ways because I’m not interested in casual sex at this point in my life. Or ever if I’m being completely honest.” My single foray into casual sex had left me a neurotic wreck for the better part of a week. I wasn't keen on reliving those particular feelings any time in the near future.

Fingers gently grasped my chin, tilting it up and forcing me to meet honey colored eyes.

My breath hitched at the contact, skin immediately heating.

When had he gotten so close?

Something about the way he was looking at me was different than he had ever looked at me before. His gaze was darker, more intense.

His presence in my personal space had quickly turned from calming to deliciously suffocating.

His lips parted as his eyes searched mine. I practically vibrated in anticipation of what he was going to say.

“I don’t just want you for an afternoon, Renna. My feelings towards you run deeper than just a sexual attraction. Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re beautiful, and it is physically hurting me to not be kissing you right now. But I also think you’re intelligent. And funny. I want the chance to explore the things that have been building between us, the chance to get to know you. Your likes, your dislikes. Anything you care to share with me.”

That was ridiculously smooth for someone who was tripping over himself the first time that I told him that I thought he was hot. “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

My eyes examined his face, my lips slightly parted. Sincerity was plain in his features.

He meant it.

He wanted me.

 _He_ _wanted me._

And I wanted nothing more than to have his mouth on mine.

“Kiss me.” I breathed.

He closed the miniscule distance between us and swept me into his arms.

His lips met mine in a hungry clash as he hoisted me up onto the side of the kitchen counter facing the front door.

My fingers wound in the hem of his t-shirt, whisking it hurriedly over his head, fingers skimming the warm skin of his chest. I tossed the shirt somewhere over my shoulder as he helped me shimmy out of my sweat pants.

My shirt followed shortly after, leaving me sitting on the counter wearing only my panties and the bandage around the top of my ribs, which did nothing in the way of modesty.

Warmth flooded me as his eyes took me in longingly.

I knew I didn’t exactly have much to offer in the tit department, so I turned my attention to his chest to keep from being embarrassed about his attention on mine.

I had seen him without a shirt just that morning, but that still didn’t stop me from staring. I ran my hands over the smooth planes of his naked chest, fingers full of admiration as they trailed lower and lower.

At some point between our lusty fumbling in the guest room at Dorian’s and our drive to the Police station he had changed out of his sweat pants into a pair of jeans.

I made quick work of his belt buckle, feeling his erection strain against the denim. My fingers stalled in their quest to free him as his fingers brushed my cheek in a way that made fire shoot through my veins. I met his gaze, doe-eyed, lips parted.

Then his mouth was crashing back down against mine, both of his hands tangling in my hair.

I shimmied my hips closer to his, trying to find some relief for the achy feeling rapidly building between my legs.

My ass nudged the empty wine bottle, sending it crashing to the ground.

I winced at the sound of breaking glass. “Shit.”

Cullen shook his head, unbothered by the mess. In one quick sweep of his arm, he cleared the rest of the random debris littering the counter.

I started to lean back over the edge of the counter to survey the damage.

“Leave it,” he growled into the side of my neck as he tugged my hips flush against his.

I gave a small ‘oh’ as his still clothed length pressed against my panty-covered core.

I rolled my hips, tracing his length with my wet heat. He groaned, so I did it again. Slower. More deliberate.

His lips moved to my jaw, allowing me a much-needed break to suck in a lungful of oxygen.

I couldn’t get enough of him.

His kiss was like a drug.

And dry-humping him like a hormone driven teenager was frustratingly shy of orgasmic.

I needed more.

But I couldn’t shake the little intrusive thought that I needed to warn him about my…sexual preferences.

In theory, we seemed to work in every way that we should for phenomenal sex. But...

I bit my lip trying to come up with a way to broach the subject delicately. As fucking awful as it was to say because he had treated me like I wasn't even a person, I had gotten lucky with Professor Solas purely in a sexual sense. He had just seemed to know what I needed. Or maybe he was just _like that_ with all of his little fuck toys.

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

I wasn’t going to think about that asshole when I had a strapping ex-Templar fully erect between my thighs.

Cullen’s gaze filled with dark promise as his thumb tugged my lip free of my teeth. “It drives me crazy when you bite your lip like that. “

I felt my skin heat at the thought that something I did unconsciously made him crazy. “It does?”

He nodded. “Is something the matter?”

“It’s just—You should know—What I mean is—I like it rough. Sex. I like rough sex.” Well, that wasn’t exactly delicate…or particularly eloquent.

Fortunately he didn’t seem to be deterred by my sudden onset shyness, or the revelation that I had blundered through.

He leaned in close, teeth grazing my ear. “You’re in luck then. I had no intentions of being gentle with you.”

Oh, Creators.

Holy fuck.

If my panties hadn’t been wet before, they were certainly drenched after that admission.

Instead of saying any of that though, I decided to try my hand at playing coy. “Oh?”

“You’ve been teasing me for the better part of two weeks. My self control can only be stretched so far.”

Who the hell was this man and where the hell had he been hiding? He was such a departure from the Cullen that I had gotten to know, the mild man who talked animatedly about chess, his siblings and the frivolity of Orlesians. Not that I didn’t like _that_ Cullen too. I was quite fond of him, actually.

I smashed my lips to his as I reached down to resume removing his pants.

And then I paused.

It was one thing to be impulsive.

It was quite another to be blatantly stupid about keeping myself protected.

“What is it?” He asked breathlessly. “Are you having second—“

“No! I want to do this. You have no idea how much I want to do this. It’s just, before this goes too much further in this particular direction do you have—“

Realization dawned on his face and before I could even finish my sentence, he shifted away from me, and dug around in his jacket, which he had hung up by the door. He pulled a condom out of one of the pockets.

“Yes. That.” My fingers brushed the button on his jeans.

In one swift impatient movement, he rid himself of his pants and underwear, kicking them off.

I followed the motion with my eyes and—

Holy shit.

I could tell he was big from our previous little romps, but just—

Holy shit.

“You’re staring.”

I looked up at his face in mild disbelief. “Of course I am!”

A wicked smile graced his lips, as he rolled the condom on, stroking himself.

“You’re huge! Seriously! You could split me in half with that thing! Fuck. I _want_ you to split me in half with that thing.”

He chuckled. “Perhaps you would like to stroke something other than my ego?”

“Yes. Very much so.” I reached out and curled my fingers around his length. He was warm and hard in my hand. My fingers barely fit around him. I gave him a tentative stroke.

He closed his eyes, hands bracing against the counter on either side of me as his hips swayed towards me.

His breath came out in a shaky exhale.

If it felt _that_ good having him in my hand, I could only imagine what he would feel like inside of me.

My other hand reached down to rid myself of the final barrier between us.

His hand circled my wrist, pulling it gently but firmly away.

“I want you to leave them on.” He growled in the same commanding tone he had used before.

It sent shivers in all the right places.

My hand kept up an unhurried rhythm on his cock as he pushed aside the thin cotton of my panties and traced a finger along my slit.

He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine with a tortured groan. “Maker’s breath. You’re soaking.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice, and he slowly sank his finger inside me.

My hand stopped moving.

My brain stopped functioning.

He withdrew his finger slightly, spreading the dampness teasingly up over my clit before sinking back inside me _just_ right.

I exhaled a breathy moan.

Fuck.

He definitely knew what he was doing with that finger.

But, everything inside me ached to be filled with him.

His nose nudged the edge of my jaw and he planted a line of kisses down my throat. “I could listen to you make those sounds all day.”

He had barely touched me, barely teased me.

But I was done. “Fuck me. Now.”

He withdrew his fingers and positioned himself against my entrance, eager to give me what I asked for. He pulled my hips against his, sinking himself inside of me with the motion.

His finger had been incredible.

But I had no words to describe the perfect way his cock fit inside me.

“Say it again.” He growled against my neck, teeth sinking into my flesh.

“Oh, fuck,” I gasped, adjusting to the feeling of him filling me, _stretching_ me. It took me a moment to find my voice again. And when I did all I had was a string of semi-incoherent _filthy_ babbling. “Fuck me. Fuck me hard. I want to come on your cock while you pound into me. I want you to mark me with your teeth when you come. I want to think about this right here every time I see the bruises on my skin. I want—“

“Getting a little ahead of yourself there.” He chuckled the sound low and heavy and full of sin as he pulled out slowly, giving a few shallow experimental thrusts, and driving me crazy in the process.

“Please, Cullen.” I needed him to fill me again. I wasn’t usually this _needy_ during sex. And I was definitely never this _vocal_. But based on the near predatory way he was smiling down at me, he was enjoying my vocalization. Which was good, because I felt comfortable enough with him to actually tell him what I wanted. “I need—“

He slammed into me, silencing my begging.

 _That_ was what I needed.

I whimpered and my legs wrapped tightly around his waist. I clung to him as he pumped into me, my fingers gripping at his shoulders to keep myself upright.

“Maker,” he hissed. “You’re so _tight_.”

His thumb brushed my clit through my panties and he made a little noise of frustration. “I changed my mind. I want these gone.”

He reached between our joined bodies tore through my panties like they were made of paper.

Fuck.

That was the single hottest thing anyone had ever done to me during sex.

His thumb returned to my clit, pressure harsh and demanding, pushing me quickly towards the finish line.

I didn’t want it to be over so soon.

“If you keep that up, I’m going to come,” I breathed.

“Good,” he grunted. “I intend for you to come at least twice.”

That wouldn’t be hard, considering the way he was stimulating every last little bit of me.

His mouth found mine again, biting more than kissing, the fingers of one hand digging roughly into my hip. His thumb continuing the punishing, brutal rhythm on my clit as he pounded into me ruthlessly.

It was all too much, driving me higher and higher until I had nowhere to go but crashing down around him.

I threw my head back with a moan, my nails digging into his shoulders as I blissfully let go.

His movements slowed as I quivered and clenched around him. His hand slid from my hip to my cheek, leaving a trail of goose bumps on my sensitive flesh.

I met his eyes, slightly disoriented by how hard I had come.

Concern touched his eyes. “Are you—“

“Couch.” I managed to spit out through the orgasm induced brain haze. “Want to ride you.”

It must have come across at least semi-coherently, because he complied with a chuckle, withdrawing his fingers and gripping my ass firmly in both hands.

He held me against him as if I weighed nothing, staying firmly seated inside me as he crossed the room in a few short strides. He settled us on the couch, my legs spread wide over his hips.

I rested my forehead against his for a moment, mentally preparing myself to move. He surprised me with a tender kiss on the lips, his arms encircling my waist and holding me tightly to his chest.

I was comfortable on his lap.

I felt like I belonged there.

I could stay there unmoving with him hard inside me forever.

The rigidity of his length reminded me that he hadn’t come yet.

I really needed to fix that.

I pulled back, hands resting on his shoulders, arching slightly away from him to gain better leverage.

I inhaled sharply at the subtle shift of him inside me.

The angle was almost _too_ deep, bordering on the edge between pain and pleasure.

It was a line that I enjoyed walking a little too much.

I was going to be sore when we were finished. But at that moment I didn’t particularly care.

He ran his hands up my sides, cupping one breast in each of his hands. My arching had placed them almost directly level with his face. He took one of my nipples between his teeth.

Need zinged through me and I began to move, using the springyness of the couch to my advantage.

I cried out as his bite turned into a deep suck.

“Do you like that?” He asked, nipping at my neck as he ran his thumb over my pleasantly abused nipple.

“Yes. Fuck yes.” I breathed, continuing my bouncing. “Do it again. Never stop doing it.”

He gave my other nipple the same treatment, and his hands moved down my body, his calloused skin rasping deliciously over my ribs and settling on my hips.

My insides were on fire.

I was ready to come again.

I could almost get relief from my bouncing alone, but the pressure wasn’t quite direct enough. “Touch me. Please.”

“I am touching you.” His voice was teasing against my breast.

I shook my head, breathing hard. “My clit. Touch my—“

His fingers fluttered against my clit, “Like this?”

I moaned. “Harder.”

He obeyed, sucking and pinching at my nipples as his fingers coaxed me quickly towards my second orgasm.

Too much.

It was all too much.

My movement stalled as I clenched around him.

His hands shifted harshly to my hips, and he held them in place as he drove up into me. “You’re so beautiful when you come.”

Every thrust drew needful, wanting noises from my throat. It didn’t matter that I had already come twice. The exquisite way he was pounding into me had another orgasm quickly building.

Without any warning I shattered around him, unable to do anything more than moan helplessly as his teeth sank into my neck where it met my shoulder.

His groan was low and guttural as his hips stuttered one final time.

He breathed heavily against my skin for a moment before pulling slightly away to give me an awed look. “Did you—“

“Yes.” I replied, just as breathy.

Three orgasms.

The final one a complete surprise to both of us.

I was boneless.

I couldn’t move.

I wanted to sleep for like a year.

I slumped against him, my chest pressed to his. His skin was slick with our combined sweat, but I didn’t care. I needed to just lay there for a minute or twenty.

He kissed the corner of my lips. “You have a filthy mouth.”

I felt my face heat, suddenly shy, despite the fact that he was literally still inside me. “Oh. Sorry, I—“

He shook his head. “Don’t apologize. I like it. I can’t wait to see what other filthy things you can do with that tongue of yours.”

Oh, Creators.

I had just come three times and all it took was one look from him to make electric need for _more_ hum through my skin.

“For now though, you should probably get off of me.”

Disappointment flooded me. _He was already done with me_. “Oh—“

His fingertips traced my cheekbone. “I would like nothing more than for you to stay right here indefinitely. But, I need to…dispose of the condom.”

Oh. He was being a responsible adult.

“Oh. Right. That.” I tried to remove myself from his lap, but found that my legs refused to cooperate. “My legs appear to have stopped working.”

He lifted me from his lap, looking quite pleased with himself.

I couldn’t help the little moan that fell from my lips as he withdrew from my body.

He placed me on the couch beside him, the armrest the only thing keeping me semi-upright.

I didn’t move as he got up from the couch.

I heard him moving around the apartment.

I heard the sound of running water.

I wasn’t sure how much time passed before he reappeared in front of me, wordlessly handing me a glass of water. I chugged the entire thing as he moved the coffee table out of the way and spread out some blankets in the middle of the floor.

I placed the glass on the floor beside the couch. “What are you doing?”

Instead of answering, he scooped me up off the couch and settled me into the nest of blankets. Then he laid down on his back and put his arm out expectantly.

I couldn’t help but be surprised. “You actually want to—“

He gave an exasperated sigh. “Just get over here. Unless you’re opposed to cuddling.”

I didn’t need to be told twice.

I snuggled into his side, slinging my arm over his stomach, and resting my head on his chest.

His heartbeat was steady under my ear.

He pulled one of the blankets over us and wrapped his arm tightly around my ribcage, holding me in place.

He pressed a soft kiss to my temple, a stark contrast to the rough kisses our afternoon had started out with. My stomach fluttered.

I sighed contentedly.

I needed this too.

The roughness was nothing without the tenderness after.

“Do you actually like cuddling?” I asked.

“I enjoy it immensely, if I’m being completely honest.”

“Oh, thank fuck.”

An amused laugh rumbled through his chest, tickling my face.

“What? I was kind of worried that you might hate it and this was for my benefit.”

“If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t have offered to do it.”

I was silent for a moment. “You’re sort of perfect, you know that?”

He snorted. “I am far from perfect.”

“Perfect for me.” I amended.

“How so?”

“You fuck _like that_ , _and_ you like cuddling? You’re like the whole package. Seriously, where have you been all my life?”

“Around.” He replied vaguely, taking my chin in his hand and tilting it back so he could press his lips against mine.

The contact started off gentle, but quickly gave way to his mouth ravaging mine, his tongue entering my mouth, hot, wet, _demanding_.

I shook my head against the quickly building desire at my overworked core, withdrawing slowly from the kiss with a slight laugh. “Sorry, I may need like fifteen minutes or so to recharge.”

“Right.” He grinned down at me broadly. “You came three times.”

I tried to glare, but failed. I was too happy to actually be cross with him. “Yes, I did. Try not to look so pleased with yourself.”

“I make no promises.”

“So…" I traced idle patterns against his skin with my fingertip. "A condom in your jacket pocket? A little presumptuous, aren’t you?”

He sighed, shifting his non-cuddling arm behind his head. “That was Bull’s doing. He slid it into my back pocket when he patted me on the ass.”

I stifled a giggle into his chest. “That was considerate of him.”

“He said that he and Dorian were ‘rooting for me’.” His face went red. With that he made the transition from Cullen the sex God to the Cullen who was easy to mess with.

I liked that I got to see a side of him that no one else did. The darker side that he kept hidden. “You know, you’re adorable when you’re flustered, right?”

“No, I was not aware of that.”

“Were you aware that I like teasing you?”

“I figured as much, with all of the teasing that you’ve been doing.” He replied dryly.

“I’ll have you know, that was me actively trying _not_ to tease or flirt with you.”

He raised a slightly bewildered eyebrow. “You can't be serious? Your self-control is almost as awful as your high-risk impulse control.”

“I think my level of self-control worked out pretty well for both of us here, thank you very much.” I gestured between our naked bodies.

He chuckled. “I suppose you have a point there.”

I was ready to fall asleep tucked against his side. But I didn’t know how long we had before reality would come crashing down around us, ending our moment of peace. Our brief kissing had left an obvious tent in the blankets around his hips. I might not have enough energy to go again myself, but I had just enough to give him a little something.

I planted a kiss on his chest.

Then another.

Then another.

His fingers wound through my hair.

My mouth trailed lower and lower, working my way towards—

The sound of keys in the door had us both freezing.

I looked up at him. “Who—“

I didn’t even get to finish that thought before Detective Pentaghast was entering the apartment.

Cullen and I were both motionless.

“Cullen? Miss Lavellan?” She glanced around before her gaze fell to us, huddled—very much naked and very much in a compromising position—in our nest of blankets in the middle of the living room floor. Her eyes narrowed disapprovingly as she crossed her arms.

Well, fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took longer than I expected it to…because you know sex scenes are still suuuper uncomfortable for me to write and I wanted to make extra sure that everything was decently good and that I kept proper track of whose body parts were where at all times. Also this was a loooong chapter.
> 
> Also, also a little side note: I feel like I sort of need to explain the role reversal in this chapter.
> 
> Cullen was confident because now he knows where they stand. He likes her, she likes him. He knows it's not just a passing fling that she wants, she wants to be with him. And, she's been teasing him like crazy since they met and he's wanted to touch her this way for awhile.
> 
> Renna is a little more hesitant than she has been previously because she didn't think any of this would _actually_ happen, and now it's happening and holy shit it's amazing, but also sort of terrifying given her track record with men. Casual sex had her constantly questioning her self worth. Relationships are a big scary thing that she hasn't been able to successfully navigate her way through. She's worried that she's going to screw this up and he'll walk out of her life for good.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading!


	17. Happy

Cullen’s grip on my hair immediately loosened, my head springing up with the sudden lack of tension that I hadn’t even realized his hand had been providing.

I let out a surprised squeak and pulled the blanket up over my head, willing the ground to open up and swallow us whole.

“Detective Rutherford.” Detective Pentaghast's voice was full of condemnation.

“Cassandra, I can explain. I—“ Cullen started, blanching at the use of his formal title.

“I do not want to hear your ‘explanations’, Detective. I am deeply disappointed in your conduct. This is a gross abuse of your position—“

“Wait…” I poked my head out from under the blanket, keeping the fabric tucked tightly around my very much naked chest. “No. You don’t…you can't seriously believe that I was lured into bed with him because of his ‘position’.”

Cullen looked like he had already accepted whatever fate she had decided to bestow upon him. He sighed. “Renna, don’t.”

“I'm going to defend your honor whether you want me to or not,” I huffed, turning to Detective Pentaghast. “Despite what you seem to think, Cullen has not been taking any sort of advantage of me. In fact, he’s been nothing but a perfect gentleman during the duration of my protective custody.”

“You—“ She started.

“This was the first time that we—Nothing happened between us prior to today.” That was a little bit of a white lie, but she didn’t need to know about our kiss the previous evening, or our groping and grinding earlier that morning. “Also, is it really appropriate for the three of us to be having this conversation when two of us are still very much naked?”

She opened her mouth.

Then closed it.

Her face went red.

She actually blushed.

I made Detective Pentaghast blush.

She turned to face the door, hands over her face. “Perhaps the two of you should get dressed.”

“Perhaps we should.” I replied evenly, my nakedness somehow making me feel braver than I ever had when dealing with her previously.

Cullen turned to me with a pleading look on his face.

“What?” I asked.

“Could you…” His eyes shifted to the side.

“Could I what?”

“Cover your eyes.”

“Seriously?” I crossed my arms. “Why do I need to cover my eyes? I’ve already seen you naked. You literally just finished fucking me. I was literally just about to blow you.”

“That’s—it’s different.” He said indignantly, face going the reddest I had seen it so far. Then he paused as my words registered. “Really? You were going to—“

“What did you think I was doing down there? Knitting a scarf?”

“I will wait in the hall.” Detective Pentaghast said loudly, apparently having had enough of our conversation. “Come get me when you are... _presentable_.”

Once she was out of the apartment, I stood with a stretch, letting the blanket fall from my body.

Cullen’s eyes followed the movement appreciatively before going wide with surprise. “Maker’s breath! Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”

“No?” I looked at him questioningly. “I’m fine. Why?”

He looked mortified. “There are—you’re covered in bruises.”

“Oh…” I shrugged. “I probably should have warned you that I bruise easy.”

“I apol—“

I knelt back down in front of him, taking his chin firmly in my hand. “Cullen, I promise that you _did not hurt me_. That was literally the best sex of my entire life, so don’t you dare apologize.”

“The best sex of your life?”

I nodded.

His eyes moved down to my chest.

“Thinking about biting my nipples again?”

“Andraste preserve me,” he said with a low chuckle. “You just say whatever’s on your mind, don’t you?”

“You’re just realizing that now?”

He shook his head, an affectionate smile on his lips. “We should get dressed. The longer we keep Cassandra waiting, the angrier she’ll become.”

I nodded and made my way to my bathroom to get myself a little more cleaned up.

I examined myself in the mirror.

My cheeks were flushed, and it had very little to do with embarrassment at being interrupted in our compromising position.

I winced as my gaze slid down from my sex flushed face.

I could understand Cullen’s concern.

I did look a little like I had lost a fistfight.

My lips were swollen and at some point the split in the bottom one had started bleeding again. I licked at it absently. For some reason tasting blood didn’t have the same effect on me as seeing it dripping from my skin.

A trail of bruises spanned the distance from the bottom of my ear to the top of the bandage on my chest, marking the pale skin of my neck in a nearly continuous line.

Small random bruises littered my hips where his fingers had gripped them.

He’d definitely done as I’d asked, marking me all over with proof of our ferocious fucking; the flush staining my cheeks darkened at the thought.

I might have looked a little worse for wear, but even I could see the contentment in the set of my eyebrows and the slight upward quirk of my lips.

I was happy, actually truly happy in a way that I hadn't been in a very long time. Possibly ever.

I dragged my brush through my hair quickly, trying to give myself some semblance of a put together appearance. When it went frizzy instead of being tamed by the brush, I gave up and pushed it up into a quick bun.

I emerged from my—now officially former—room a moment later, fully clothed in my own sweatpants and a spaghetti strap top just in time to catch Cullen buttoning his jeans. I bit my lip. His abs truly were a sight to behold. My eyes followed the trail of dark hair leading from his belly button, disappearing into his jeans.

He hadn’t noticed my arrival, too focused on glancing around the kitchen with a puzzled look on his face. Then he paused and reached up, pulling something down off the top of the fridge.

His shirt.

Apparently it had gotten some distance when I tossed it over my shoulder.

I made my way over to the kitchen counter, snatching my ruined panties off the floor as he tugged his shirt on.

He skirted around the broken glass on the floor, meeting me in the small dining area.

I toyed with the scrap of fabric for a moment before impulsively tucking it into his front pocket. I bit my lip again, this time looking up at him.

He brought a hand to my face, brushing his thumb along my lip, a gentle reminder of how it affected him.

I drew his thumb into my mouth, swirling my tongue around the tip and giving it a good hard suck.

My taste lingered on his skin.

His lips parted and he let out an uneven breath. Desire simmered in his eyes, and he looked like he was going to pull me into another harsh and heavy kiss. Instead, he withdrew his hand and took a deliberate step back from me.

I crossed my arms in protest, glaring up at him.

“There will be time later,” he promised. “When we don’t have Cassandra waiting outside the door to speak to us.”

“Fine.” I sighed. “I suppose it’s probably best to get this over with.”

“Yes, it is,” he agreed. "Prolonging the inevitable will only make things worse."

I crossed the room and spared him a glance as I paused with my hand on the doorknob. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” He sighed, looking about as enthused as I felt at the prospect of a lecture from Detective Pentaghast.

I poked my head out into the hall.

Detective Pentaghast was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, a deeply unimpressed look etched—probably permanently at this point—on her features.

“It’s safe to come back.” I informed her. “We are _presentable_.”

Her eyes shifted to my neck disapprovingly before sliding back up to my face. She nodded and followed me silently back into the apartment.

The three of us stood in awkward silence in the entryway.

Cullen shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. Opening and closing his mouth a few times before finally settling on what he wanted to say. “Cassandra, I don’t wish to seem rude, but what are you even doing here?”

She raised a reproachful eyebrow at him. “Neither of you were answering your phones.”

“Why were you trying to get a hold of us at all?” I asked when she didn't elaborate further.

“I was concerned for your safety.” She frowned at me before turning to Cullen. “You did not follow protocol. You were supposed to check in once you arrived here. Now I see that you were just…” her eyes landed back on me, “ _otherwise occupied_.”

I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at her.

“I should probably see if I have missed any other…important correspondence.” He patted at his pants pockets before moving to his jacket with a frown. “I must have left my phone in the car.”

“And you?” Detective Pentaghast asked me, brow arched.

I shrugged indifferently. The attitude she was giving me was bringing out the urge to retaliate with immaturity. “Mine died on the way here from Dorian and Bull’s. I haven’t had a chance to charge it yet, being _otherwise occupied_ and all.”

She glared at me.

I glared back.

The air crackled with mild animosity.

Cullen looked between us somewhat helplessly.

“You can go get your phone,” I told him, crossing my arms.

“I—“ He hesitated, as if maybe he thought that we would get into a fistfight if he left the two of us alone together. “All right. I’ll return momentarily. Please do not antagonize each other while I’m gone.”

I gave him a tight smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Detective Pentaghast huffed indignantly. “I am not a child, Cullen. Do not treat me like one.”

He shook his head and disappeared without another word, leaving me entirely alone with one of the most terrifying people I had ever met.

Detective Pentaghast cleared her throat. “So, _Renna_. What are your intentions with Cullen?”

Oh, that was such a loaded question. I _intended_ a lot of things, I was fairly certain that she didn’t want to hear about any of them. “We plan to keep seeing one another. We haven’t exactly discussed it any further than that.”

Her look softened a fraction. “He is not built for some casual dalliance. Be gentle with him.”

“Is this where you tell me if I break his heart, you’ll break my face?” I joked lamely, trying to ease some of the tension that had accumulated between us.

Her gaze turned reproachful. “No, of course not. But given my position, I do know how to make _certain things_ look like an accident.”

“Right…” I couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not. Terrifying. Definitely terrifying.

Her face softened again. “Cullen is a dear friend. We have known one another for many years.”

My stomach twisted a little at the way she said it, fondness bordering on something more than friendly towards him clearly evident in her tone. Cullen hadn’t mentioned there being anything between the two of them, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything _worth_ mentioning. She _had_ been the reason he was transferred to Haven in the first place. “Have the two of you ever—“

She caught my meaning immediately, face turning disgusted. “Maker, no! We are friends, and we work together. That is all. Also, he is not my type.”

Ruggedly handsome, built like a lumberjack, and sweet as cotton candy wasn’t her type.

It did beg the question, what was her type?

Short, hairy and charmingly sarcastic?

Because that would be sort of hilarious.

I shook the thought from my head. “That’s enough about my relationship with Cullen. Did Leliana get the chance to speak with you?”

Her brow arched. “Regarding?”

“Regarding the fact that she thinks I might still be in danger.”

“She did.” Annoyance flickered across her face. “Ignore her. She is a fanatic.”

“Easy for you to say when the drug lords aren’t after you.” I grumbled under my breath.

“I am not entirely convinced that there is anyone after you either.” She replied evenly.

“You listened to the recording. Why would Corypheus lie about taking me for someone else?”

“We have to entertain the possibility that he may have been employing misdirection to shift the blame for your disappearance.”

“To what end? He didn’t know I was wearing a wire. Why would he lie to me? He was going to kill me. Have you interrogated Samson about it? And what about Sera and Bull? Surely they were able to shed some light on the situation.” Thinking about Sera and her potential involvement in everything sort of made my chest hurt.

Her expression closed off even further, shifting to something more coldly professional. “That is really none of your concern, Miss Lavellan. In case you’ve forgotten, you are a civilian, not a member of the Haven Police department.”

I had sort of forgotten that with Cullen’s willingness to share information with me. I opened my mouth to argue with her, but Cullen chose that moment to return, removing the chance for me to defend my right to the answers to those questions.

“Now that I am certain of your safety, I should be going.” Detective Pentaghast said, looking between the two of us.

My brows drew together in annoyance, then I let my face relax. “Are we still on for tomorrow afternoon, Detective?”

“What’s tomorrow afternoon?” Cullen looked between us, a puzzled look crossing his features.

“I do not think that’s any of your business.” She said, glowering at him.

At the same time I said, "Book club."

She turned to me with an unimpressed frown. “Yes. I will see you tomorrow afternoon.”

She left, abruptly shutting the door behind herself.

“What on Earth was that about?” Cullen asked.

“She’s meeting with Varric tomorrow to talk to him about his books."

"Books?"

"They’re technically romance novels. Cheesy, smutty, awful romance novels. They’re more or less porn. And not even particularly good porn.”

“Wait…you’re saying that those books she reads are…erotic novels?”

“Yup.”

“That is…” he made a face, “something that I could have gone the rest of my life without knowing.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Have you read them too?” His lip quirked up as if the thought of me reading 'erotic novels' was amusing to him. He brought his hand up to cup my cheek.

I leaned into his touch with a grin. “How else would I know how terrible they are?”

He leaned down, lips just about to touch mine, then he sighed, letting his hand drop. “We should probably get to work clearing the apartment.”

"Tease." I grumbled, letting out the breath I hadn't even realized I was holding, disappointment surging through me. “Sure. I guess. If you want to be a boring responsible adult.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say that I _want_ to be one. But this is something that we have to get done, unfortunately. And, if I were to kiss you now, I wouldn't want to stop.”

I sighed. "When you say things like that, it doesn't exactly make me want to behave."

 

Once our respective rooms were packed up, and the broken glass had been cleared from the kitchen floor, we turned our attention to the rest of the kitchen.

“I’ll take the pantry stuff and the fridge stuff.” I offered, figuring he had no use for the raw cooking ingredients when he had admitted that he didn't do any cooking.

“What would you like to do about the food in the freezer?”

I looked at the assorted containers of spaghetti sauce, beef stew, chicken potpie, and lasagna. I had gone a little overboard in the meal-prepping department. “You should take it.”

“Nonsense. I—“

“’Exist mainly on TV dinners’?” I quoted, raising an amused eyebrow.

“Yes. That.”

“All the more reason for you to take the pre-prepared home cooked meals. Unless you have a problem with my cooking.”

“Of course not!” He sputtered. "I enjoy your cooking immensely."

It was so easy to get him riled up. “Then, you take them.”

He gave a defeated sigh. “All right. If you insist.”

The kitchen had been the last thing that we needed to take care of.

I sighed, heaving my backpack over my shoulder. “You know what I regret most about leaving here?”

“What’s that?”

“I never tried out that soaker tub.”

“I have one just like it.” He didn’t seem to fully realize the implications of his statement.

“Cullen, are you inviting me over to your place to use your bathtub?”

His face went red. “Oh—er, that is—“

“Because the answer is a resounding yes. Especially if you fuck me in your bed first. Or on any available surface, really. I’m not that picky.”

“I believe that could be arranged.”

 

Before I knew it, the car was loaded up and we were on our way back to my dingy little apartment. The one that I shared with my oldest friend, who I had known pretty much my entire life, but it turned out I really didn't know anything about.

“Would you like for me to come up?” Cullen asked as he pulled up to the curb in front of my building.

“Normally I would say yes…but I need to have a conversation with Sera that is most likely best done in private. She’s been lying to me about some pretty major things, and I need to set everything straight.”

“Ah. Well, should you require anything, let me know.”

He helped me unload my things into the lobby, and after numerous assurances that I could take it from there, he gave me a parting kiss that lingered sweetly and then he left.

As I lugged all my crap up multiple flights of stairs, I realized that I might have been too hasty dismissing Cullen's help.

When I entered the apartment that had been my home for the better part of the last decade, Sera was sitting on the couch watching a movie. I moved across the room, putting the grocery items away before making my way to my bedroom door to drop off my bags.

“Detective hotpants likes it rough, eh?” She grinned, indicating the side of my neck as she paused the TV.

“We need to talk.”

"Sure." Her smile faltered and she vaulted over the back of the couch to stand in front of me. “Wot’s up, Ren Ren?”

“Don’t you ‘Ren Ren’ me. You’ve been lying to me. About the Inquisition.”

She crossed her arms. “No, I just haven’t been tellin’ ya everythin’. There’s a difference.”

“How long?”

“I wanted to tell ya, Ren. I really did. But they’re stupidly strict ‘bout that sorta stupid thing.” She rolled her eyes.

“How. Long.” I ground out, not in the mood for her deflections.

She let her arms fall to her sides. “Ten months.”

“Ten months?” My stomach dropped. My best friend had been lying to me about where she’d been going and what she’d been doing for ten whole months. “Does Dagna know?”

“Where d’ya think I met her?”

“I should have known you were lying about meeting her at a coffee shop. You hate coffee.”

“Yer right. Ya should’ve.”

I glared at her, my thoughts going back to earlier that morning. “You didn’t get taken because of me, did you? This morning you were going to tell me that it wasn’t my fault that they took you.”

“Yep. I was sniffin’ around somewhere I wasn’t supposed to, and they followed me back to Bull and Dorian’s. Not sure how they knew we’re connected.”

“Speaking of connections that had no business being made, did you know that there would potentially be drug dealers at the club when we went out?”

She didn't meet my gaze. “Well…”

“Sera.”

“Bull said there’d be a chance. Like just a super tiny one though.” She held her thumb and forefinger together to illustrate just how miniscule the chance was. “I didn’t think ya’d stumble in on ‘em murdering the head of the flippin’ Chantry.”

“So, you knew there was a chance that Corypheus would be there and you took me anyway? You let me stumble around blind ass drunk in a place where drug dealers were fucking known to conduct business?”

“To be fair, I was sorta sloshed too.”

“That doesn’t make it any fucking better!”

“Inquisition people’d been watchin’ the place for forever and Coryphe-shit hadn’t shown up. I figured it was safe. And Bull’s guys were lookin’ out for us. We shoulda been fine. It’s you and yer stupid bad luck that’re the issue here.”

“Why did you feel the need to take me there at all?”

“To loosen ya up.”

“I didn’t need loosening up, thank you very much.”

“Yer too pigheaded to admit it, but I did ya a favor draggin’ ya out there!”

“You call that a favor? I witnessed a fucking murder! Two if you count the fact that I was hanging from Corypheus’ hand when Cullen shot him!”

“Before I dragged yer ungrateful arse out to the Divine Conclave, when was the last time ya did somethin’ other than study or get hammered on our couch?”

“I was getting along just fine before all of this!” A lie.

And she knew it. “No. Ya were hidin’ from yer past in yer room like a scared little—“

“You know what _he_ did to me.” I hissed, severely displeased that she chose _now_ to bring up my ex.

The fight in her eyes faltered just a bit. “Yeah. I know. And I also know that the way ya’ve been copin’ isn’t—“

“Don’t you fucking turn this around on me! This isn’t about my coping mechanisms,” I bristled. “This is about the fact that you’ve been lying to me! You’re the one that’s part of some stupid secret organization. You shouldn’t have taken me to that club.”

“Wot’re ya complainin’ about? Ya got to sleep with Detective hotpants cause of all of this. Isn’t that a fair trade?”

“No.” Yes. “This isn’t about Cullen.”

“Yer bein' dramatic.”

“I think I’m reacting in a perfectly logical manner. You lied to me. And I’m pissed.”

“I lied to keep ya safe.”

“I feel like I don’t even know you anymore.”

“Course ya do, Ren. I’m still me.” Hurt crept into her eyes.

“I’m not so sure about that.” I turned and paused with my hand on my doorknob. “I have a lot of unpacking to do.”

“Ren—“

I felt sick. “No. I’m done talking for tonight.”

 

I woke up the next morning to a text from Cullen.

**[6:45 am] Cullen:**  I told myself I was going to give you some space to get settled, but there is one thing that I needed to say.  
**[6:45 am] Cullen:** I missed you this morning.

It wasn’t enough to completely erase my fight with Sera of course, but the fact that he was thinking about me took a weight off my chest that I hadn’t even realized had settled there.

This thing with Cullen was shaping up to be a night and day difference compared to how Professor Solas had treated me.

I spent the entire morning and some of the afternoon reorganizing my bedroom.

I managed to avoid seeing Sera. Or maybe she managed to avoid seeing me.

 

Varric had asked me to meet him a little early so that we could catch up, so I met him at 2:30 pm at the coffee shop Detective Pentaghast had mentioned. Before I went out I had a shower and removed all of my bandages. I made sure to wear a loose fitting sweater so I wouldn't irritate the cut on my chest.

Varric was sitting alone at a table in the corner, two coffee cups in front of him.

When he noticed me, he gave a little wave and motioned me over.

“Yikes, Poppy. What happened to you?” He took a drink from one of the mugs and slid the other over to me.

“I got in a fight with a bleach bottle…among other things.” Like a knife wielding maniac.

“Well, bruises aside, you look good. You’re practically glowing. Is there a cute boy that I should know about?” He teased, a joking twinkle lighting his eye.

“Actually, yes. But he's more of a 'strikingly handsome man' than a 'cute boy'.”

“And? Details, Poppy. Don't hold out on me.”

“Well…he’s a detective with the Haven Police, and we’ve only technically been _involved_ for like twenty-four hours.”

“As far as I can tell, you’ve spent the better part of your adulthood avoiding even being in the same room as the Police." He gave me an amused smile. "How did you get _involved_ with a Detective?”

I glanced around, making sure to keep my voice down. “Well, just about two weeks ago I witnessed a murder and wound up in protective custody. The man that I’m sort of seeing is the detective who was in charge of my protective custody. He's the one that dropped me off for my last shift at the gas station. I believe you called him ‘Curly’?”

His eyebrows shot up and his voice lowered to a surprised breath. “You witnessed a murder?”

“Yup. Then some other shit went down. Sera got kidnapped because she’s part of some secret club sworn to take down the murderous assholes that I saw being murderous assholes. But I thought she had gotten kidnapped because of me, so I rushed in to save her. Apparently all I’m good for is getting knocked out by bleach bottles while hiding in a supply closet like a wuss.”

“That’s what’s been going on in your life for the past two weeks? Are you serious? I figured you just needed some time off because you were studying for midterms.”

I shrugged. “There was a fair bit of studying too.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “I should write a book about you. I’m thinking ‘ _This Shit is Weird: The Renna Lavellan Story’_. What do you think?”

I nodded emphatically. “You can pump Detective Pentaghast for information when she gets here. It’ll be great.”

“So, this fan…Detective Pentaghast? What’s she like?”

“Nope. My lips are sealed. It is infinitely more amusing for me if you go in blind.”

“You’re no fun, Poppy.”

I snorted. “Says you. I’m enjoying this immensely.”

“When do you think you’ll be coming back to work?”

“After midterms if that works for you.”

"Sure, kid. I can make that work."

While we waited, we chatted about anything and everything, from my how my classes were going to Varric's latest book (of the non-romance variety because I absolutely refused to read another one of his trashy romance novels).

Just before 3:30 pm, the door to the little café opened, and there she was. Detective Pentaghast.

She was dressed sort of like she had googled ‘casual date attire’ and had put on the first thing she had in her closet that even remotely matched.

I had only ever seen her in no-nonsense button down shirt and dress pants. She was very pretty when she let her hair down, so to speak. Her shirt was a short sleeved, off the shoulder peplum style, and she was wearing dark skinny jeans and nude heels. Despite the winter chill in the air, her jacket was draped over her forearms, leaving her muscular biceps and rather striking collarbones on display.

She glanced around—nervously, I would say if I didn’t know any better—a small smile tugging at her lips when her gaze landed on Varric and I.

“Is that her?” Varric asked.

“You should probably wipe the drool off your face before she gets over here.” I teased as she crossed the semi-crowded room.

“She looks like she could bench press me.” He muttered in awe as he stood to greet her.

She came to a stop right in front of him, even without her heels, she would have been at least a foot taller than him.

She glowered down at him slightly, obviously having heard the words that were supposed to be for my ears only. “I thought that you would be taller.”

“Detective!” I sputtered. I couldn’t believe that those words had come out of her mouth. “You can’t just—“

Varric shook his head, cutting me off. He gave Detective Pentaghast a slow smile. “I like the honesty.”

“I am a very honest woman.” She raised one perfectly arched eyebrow and offered her hand. “Detective Cassandra Pentaghast.”

He took her offered hand, placing a gentlemanly kiss on her knuckles. “Varric Tethras.”

This was going to be fantastic. I had to repress the urge to clap my hands in pure unrestrained glee. “Well, I guess that would be my cue to leave. You two kids have fun.”

I exited the coffee shop and before my brain could fully process what was happening, I was calling Cullen.

He answered after one ring. “Renna? Is everything all right?”

I had called him impulsively because I wanted to tell him about my day. About Varric and Detective Pentaghast. About what was happening with Sera. And I had really just wanted to hear his voice. But I couldn't say any of that, because I didn't want to scare him away. “Yeah…I just wanted to say ‘hey’. So…uh…hey.”

“Hello.” At least he sounded amused.

“Hey,” I said again.

“You said that already.” That time I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Sorry…I’m just a little nervous I guess.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because there’s been a lot going on with...you know everything, but now it’s over. And I missed you too…sorry I didn’t text you back this morning. I got sort of caught up with things at home.”

“I wasn't overly worried. I figured that I would hear from you once things settled down a little. How did your talk with Sera go?”

I frowned. “Not exactly the greatest. She doesn’t think she did anything wrong by lying to me.”

“This might not be what you want to hear right now, but she was trying to keep you safe."

I blew out a sigh. “By dragging me into a drug dealer’s den?”

“By not informing you that it was a drug dealer’s den.”

“I suppose."

"I'm not saying that I agree with her methods, but her heart was in the right place."

Hearing his voice wasn't enough to scratch the itch forming under my skin. I needed to see him. I needed to know that we were good. "Are you busy right now?”

“No, I’ve got some time. I could meet you somewhere if you’d like?”

“Yeah. I would like that. The pizza place by my apartment?”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Perfect. See you then.”

 

I arrived at the pizza place approximately five minutes later, bypassing the takeout counter and snagging a booth by the door.

The small dining room was almost completely occupied.

It was close enough to dinnertime that ordering an entire pizza could be justified. Whatever I didn’t eat, I would bring home to Sera as a peace offering. She _would_ eat normal pizza if it was all that was offered to her.

Fighting with her made me feel sick.

I had let my temper get the best of me last night.

I couldn't exactly fault her for following orders about keeping everything a secret.

The door chimed, and in walked Cullen, eyes searching.

My heart did a funny little flip when his eyes met mine.

“Hey.” I greeted, trying to act casual, pretending that my heart wasn’t trying to beat out of my chest.

A small smile tugged at his lips as he sat down across from me. “Hey.”

“We may have done this bit already.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “We may have.”

“I’m glad you came.” I fiddled with the straw in my drink.

“Me too.”

“I…ordered a pizza…did you want to join me for dinner?”

He hesitated, doubtlessly having flashbacks of Sera’s horror of a pizza preference.

“It’s just plain old cheese, I promise.”

“Then, yes, I would love to join you.”

I fiddled with my straw some more. “I—“

“We—“

“I don’t know how to do this.” I steamrolled ahead with a nervous laugh. “We lived together. We slept together. And _now_ we’re going to start seeing each other? It's all sort of backwards, isn't it?”

He looked down at his hands briefly, then back up at me. “I must admit, this is a first for me as well. I really like you, Renna. I’ve enjoyed our time together these past two weeks. And I…I really want to make this work.”

He really liked me. I tried not to let myself grin like an idiot. I think I only half succeeded. “I do too…so, how exactly _do_ we make this work?”

“Well, I believe that the first step would be going on an actual date.”

I gestured vaguely around the pizza place. “Is this a good first date location?”

He considered a moment before nodding slowly. “It shows definite promise. But I think I would want to take you somewhere nicer for our first official date.”

“Why?” I teased. “You already know that I put out.”

He let out a surprised laugh. “Yes. That is _definitely_ something that I have already been made aware of.”

“I don’t need anything fancy, Cullen. You don’t have to go all out to impress me or get my attention. You already have it.”

“Well, as long as I have it…” He leaned across the small table and placed his hand on my cheek, guiding my lips towards his. The kiss was chaste and sweet.

“Gross.”

I pulled away from Cullen, sparing him a small smile before turning to greet our intruder. “Hey, Sera.”

Sera stuck out her tongue. “Ya know this is a public place, yeah?”

I looked around with an exaggerated turn of my head. “Is it really? I had no idea!”

“What’re ya doin’ here? ‘Sides bein’ all gross and coupley I mean.”

“Having dinner.” I nodded towards my incoming pizza. “You?”

Sera nodded towards the takeout counter. “Also dinner.”

“Have you ordered yet?” Cullen asked.

She shook her head.

“Would you like to join us?” He offered, surprising both of us.

Her gaze shifted to me uncertainly. “Are ya still mad at me?”

I sighed. “No. I suppose not. And I'm sorry for getting mad at you in the first place.”

“Ya had every right to be mad. I'm sorry I lied to ya. So, we're good, yeah?"

“Yeah.” Of course we still needed to have a serious talk, but that wasn't the time or the place for it.

“Then sure.” She shrugged, flopping down next to me in the booth. “I’ll never turn down free food.”

Cullen looked between us with a smile.

I returned it, because he was willing to hang out with Sera to make me happy.

And that made my heart melt the tiniest bit.

I fully expected him to change his mind about that given prolonged exposure of course, but for the moment, it was nice. It was sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a little impromptu family vacation this past weekend, and now I'm ready to get back into the swing of things.


	18. Routine

“I’m walkin' ya to school.” Sera said, leaning against the wall by the front door.

I paused lacing up my winter boots, looking up at her with a raised eyebrow. “Why?”

She crossed her arms. “It’s yer first day back after everythin’ and even if the cops aren’t worried about ya, I am. So’s the Inquisition.”

I snorted, standing and crossing my own arms. “So…you’re like my Inquisition assigned body guard then?”

“No, I’m yer friend. And as yer friend, I just happened to talk Leliana into keepin' a close eye on ya.”

I _was_ a little uneasy at the thought of going back out into the world all by myself, so I wasn't going to argue about the added layer of protection. Cullen couldn't exactly hang around with me in an official capacity anymore now that his assignment was through.

“What do you think of Leliana?” I asked instead of attempting to pretend that I didn't want a bodyguard. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her. She was terrifying of course, but at least she seemed to want to keep me safe for the time being.

Sera shrugged. “Honestly, she kinda scares me. But she gets shite done. Met her through a friend of a friend. Friend of a friend introduced me to her, she liked my contact list, so she invited me to join the Inquisition.”

“And Bull and Dorian? Did you meet them through the Inquisition too?”

She nodded. “Though, Dorian’s not technically a member. Least not on paper. Some Tevinter-y reasons. Not that any of us is technically on paper anyway. You can trust ‘em. Bull’s good people. Even though he’s not _really_ people. He makes me wonder ‘bout things…I mean, what do their women look like? Woooof. And Dorian is fun. Could lose a bit more Tevinter though. Now, are ya done stallin’? It’s time to go. And don’t worry, I’ve got yer back.”

I shot her an amused look. “How exactly are you planning on fending off would-be-assailants? Neither one of is particularly adept at hand to hand combat.”

She lifted the hem of her shirt, showing a pistol strapped into a holster on her stomach. “After I got taken, Bull gave me a gun. Not my first choice. But a bow and arrow are sorta conspicuous, yeah? Didn’t even notice _this_ , did ya?”

I eyed the gun warily. “No. I did not.”

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. They gave me proper trainin’ and shite. All part of orientation.”

“Orientation? What exactly do you _do_ with the Inquisition?”

“I can’t give ya specifics. But I’m real good at breakin’ into places.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” She had a knack for getting into places she wasn’t supposed to be.

 

Having someone to talk to made the half hour long walk go by much faster. And knowing that Sera was packing heat was simultaneously relieving and worrying.

“So you and Cullen are _together_ together now, yeah?”

“Yes. In case the neck full of hickeys didn’t clue you in.”

“Ya could just be boinkin’.” She pointed out.

I sighed good-naturedly. “We’re _together_ together.”

“What happened to Sole-ass?”

“Well…I uh…" I shifted uncomfortably. "I did what you suggested. Texted him a picture of my tits and told him to go fuck himself.”

“Oh, Ren.” She snorted a laugh, her expression was somewhere between amused and disbelieving. “How’d _that_ go?”

“He ambushed me after class and shoved his tongue down my throat.”

Her nose wrinkled. “And?”

“And Cullen just happened to be with me at the time.”

“ _And_?” She huffed impatiently. “Yer gonna hafta give me more than a sentence at a time, Ren.”

“Fine. Cullen punched him in the face. Then we had a little private discussion in which he mentioned that he was too busy fucking other people to pay any sort of attention to me, and he heavily implied that my breaking things off with him would affect my grades. I still broke things off anyway.”

“So, he’s a right friggin' tool.”

“No arguments there.”

“Are ya nervous?” Sera asked as the campus came into view.

“Why would I be nervous?”

“Cause ya haven’t seen him since Cullen decked him.”

She had me there.

Seeing Professor Solas again was definitely something to be nervous about. It felt like everything that happened between us was just some bad dream. It was funny, he had consumed the majority of my thoughts for nearly two weeks, and now I just wanted to pretend that it had never happened.

I wanted to move on.

With Cullen.

I shrugged with feigned nonchalance. “I’m sure I’ll be fine. And if not, well…then he deserves to be reported for inappropriate conduct with students.”

“The user prick deserves to be reported anyways.” She muttered.

“It was my lapse in sanity. I’m not going to ruin his career over this. Even if he is a dickbag on a personal level, he’s still a decent teacher.”

“Shouldn’t matter. Takin’ advantage of students should get him axed.” She drew her thumb across her throat to illustrate her point.

“He may have been a manipulative douche, and he may not have been totally clear on what he expected from me, but I _did_ consent to the whole sex thing. He didn't pressure me into it.”

 

Despite playing it cool for Sera, I _was_ nervous about setting foot in the AESTM classroom.

I had very seriously debated not showing up at all.

I had also very seriously considered dropping it altogether, unfortunately it was too late in the semester for that, so I would have to suck it up and deal with the consequences of thinking with my lady parts.

I took a deep breath and held it, bracing myself as I entered the classroom.

To my utter astonishment, Professor Solas wasn’t in his usual spot at the desk at the front of the classroom.

It was odd.

He was never late.

Never.

And he didn’t take sick days either.

Ten minutes after class was supposed to have started, he still hadn’t shown up and a figure appeared in the open doorway.

A figure who was very much not Professor Solas.

For one thing, she was very much female, for another, she was very much human.

Her black hair was pulled into a stylish knot at the back of her head. She was showing far more of her pale cleavage than could reasonably be considered tasteful for a classroom setting.

She set her briefcase down on the vacant desk as she surveyed the class with piercing yellow eyes. “I am Professor Morrigan. Solas has requested an indefinite leave of absence for…personal reasons. The University has brought me on to oversee his classes for the remainder of the semester.”

‘Personal reasons’…did that have something to do with me?

Was it conceited to think that it might?

After class, I met Sera for lunch in the cafeteria.

“How’d it go? Did ya glare daggers at him the entire time?”

“No.”

“Why the frig not?”

“He didn’t show up. In fact, he has someone covering his classes for the remainder of the semester.”

“Did they say how come?”

I shook my head. “Personal reasons.”

“Weird. Think he got a conscience about being a right prick?”

“I sincerely doubt it. I’m sure it has absolutely nothing to do with me. It doesn’t matter anyway. The important thing is that I never have to see him again.”

 

Sera walked me to and from school Monday and Tuesday, hanging around campus the entire time I was in class.

I hadn’t seen Cullen since our dinner with Sera on Sunday. He was busy dealing with the aftermath of the whole ‘Corypheus’ thing. And I was falling back into my routine of going to school and studying.

It was only Tuesday evening. It wasn’t like I had gone a ridiculously extended amount of time without seeing him or anything, and we had texted on and off for the past two days about nothing in particular. Still, I missed the sound of his voice, so I called him while I cooked dinner.

“Renna.” His voice was warm. “How have you been?”

“I’ve been good. Adjusting to the new old normal. How about you?”

“I’ve been doing well, thank you. Everything is moving along smoothly at work. How have your classes been?”

I raised an eyebrow at the forced casualness of his voice. “In general? Or are you asking about a specific class.”

“In general. Though if you wanted to discuss a specific class—“

I had to hand it to him. He had managed not to ask me about Professor Solas for two entire days. If the roles had been reversed, I would have texted the second he set foot in his ‘one-time-ex-lover’s’ classroom. “Professor Solas left. He won’t be returning for the remainder of the semester.”

I could hear him shift uncomfortably. “Because of—“

“Not sure. His replacement just said he was taking a leave of absence for personal reasons. It could have something to do with me. But I seriously doubt it. He really didn’t give a shit that I broke things off with him. But it’s over, and I don’t particularly want to talk about him anymore.”

“Of course, we can speak of other things.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“I’ve been thinking…perhaps I could take you out for dinner. Tomorrow night? Ideally somewhere that Sera is far less likely to stumble across us.”

I twirled my hair around my finger, leaning against the kitchen counter. “You’re the one that invited her to stay and eat with us.”

“I’m aware. I figured that it would be a good idea to get to know your best friend, since I plan on being around for the foreseeable future."

I was glad we were on the phone so he couldn’t see my blush or the accompanying grin.

“So, dinner? Tomorrow night?” He asked again.

“Yeah. I’d like that.”

“Good. I shall pick you up at 6:00.”

 

I spent the entirety of my Wednesday in a haze of overwhelming giddiness. I was beyond excited for my date with Cullen.

A real date.

I hadn’t been on a real date in…ever, technically.

My ex had taken me out to parties, but we had never really gone out just the two of us. And he had certainly never taken me anywhere nice.

Halfway through my last class of the day, I received a text. Because Professor Solas had been the only teacher to have an issue with in-class texting, I checked my phone.

 **[3:54 pm] Cullen:** It might sound silly, but I’ve been counting the minutes until I get to see you again.  
**[3:55 pm] Me:** Not silly. Sweet.  
**[3:55 pm] Me:** I forgot to ask earlier, what should I wear tonight?  
**[3:55 pm] Cullen:** Something nice.  
**[3:55 pm] Me:** That’s definitely open to interpretation. What are we doing?  
**[3:56 pm] Cullen:** It’s a surprise.  
**[3:57 pm] Me:** My fanciest clown costume it is then.  
**[3:57 pm] Cullen:** You have more than one?  
**[3:57 pm] Me:** You’ll have to wait and see ;)  
**[3:58 pm] Cullen:** I look forward to it. Regardless, you’ll be the loveliest clown in the room.  
**[3:58 pm] Me:** You mean I won’t be the only clown in the room? Damn. What’s the point then? I guess I’ll just have to wear my birthday suit, at least I know how much enjoyment you get out of that.

His texts stopped for nearly twenty minutes. I wasn't too worried though. He was at work, and that sort of needed to be his priority.

 **[4:16 pm] Cullen:** I’ll have you know that I have spent the last fifteen minutes cleaning coffee from my keyboard.  
**[4:16 pm] Me:** Why?  
**[4:17 pm] Cullen:** I spat coffee all over my keyboard after reading your last message. As much as it pains me to say this: Please wear clothes this evening. Where we’re going showing up nude would be frowned upon.  
**[4:17 pm] Me:** But we can have so much fun naked.  
**[4:17 pm] Cullen:** I fear my keyboard won’t survive an extended texting session with you.  
**[4:18 pm] Cullen:** Several colleagues have asked if I’m all right. Apparently I look flushed. I will speak with you later.  
**[4:18 pm] Me:** So you’re saying I shouldn’t send you any sexy pictures.

I did a quick search for ‘funny sexy images’ and sent him the first one that caught my eye. A picture of an orangutan leaning against a tree, with the caption ‘So…you come here often?’

 **[4:18 pm] Me:** [IMAGE ATTACHED]  
**[4:21 pm] Cullen:** You’re terrible.  
**[4:21 pm] Me:** But you like me anyway.  
**[4:22 pm] Cullen:** Very much so. I’ll see you at 6:00.

 

I hummed tunelessly as I bustled around the apartment getting ready for Cullen’s arrival.

I had managed to tame my hair into something that resembled a curly mess of effortlessly sexy bed head.

I kept my make up understated and on the natural side.

The clothing was where things got tricky. My definition of something nice and his definition of something nice were most likely leagues apart.

And I didn’t exactly have a large selection of ‘nice’ clothes to begin with.

I picked out a short, figure-hugging black dress that hit me at about mid thigh, showing off ample amounts of my alarmingly pale legs. It had a v-shaped mesh panel, from my collarbone to my waist, putting my—also alarmingly pale—‘cleavage’ on display. The plus side about being less than gifted in the breast department was that I didn’t have to wear a bra. The sleeves of the dress were long, which was the only thing about it that was even mildly winter appropriate. They were also the only saving grace towards making the outfit ‘something nice’ instead of something someone would wear to a bar if they wanted to get laid.

As I was deciding whether or not to wear panties, my phone buzzed.

      **[5:55 pm] Cullen:** I’ve arrived. Would you like me to come up?  
**[5:55 pm] Me:** I’ll be down shortly, just give me like five minutes?  
**[5:56 pm] Cullen:** All right, I’ll be waiting.

If I let him up, there was a fairly good chance that we wouldn’t make it out of the apartment. And I was determined to have our relationship be about more than sex.

Sera wolf-whistled as I exited my bedroom. “Yer lookin’ like someone’s gettin’ lucky tonight.”

“Hopefully me.” I blew her a kiss. “Don’t wait up.”

“Wasn’t plannin’ on it.”

Balancing first on one foot, then the other, I managed to secure my strappy, black, 4 inch heels to my ankles without falling over. Any snow we had gotten, hadn't stuck around for very long, and there was no ice on the ground, so I wasn't overly worried about the elements bringing about my literal downfall. I grabbed my jacket from the closet and noted with a slight amount of amusement that it was a good six inches longer than my dress.

I tottered down the stairs as fast as I dared. I was a little out of practice. I rarely wore heels. It had been years since I had a reason to.

Cullen was standing outside beside the door to the building, his cheeks and nose pleasantly rosy against the cool night air. He was wearing an outfit similar to the one he had been wearing the first day he followed me to class. Dark jeans, dark blue button down shirt, a black tie, the leather jacket with the fluffy red and black collar. His face lit up when he saw me.

“You could have waited in your car.” I informed him.

His face settled into a carefully composed smile, trying to hide his excitement. “Nonsense, it’s a lovely evening.”

He was so fucking adorable.

“It’s winter, Cullen.”

“Yes, it is.” His eyes roamed over the trench coat. “Promise me you’re wearing something under that.”

“I promise that I am wearing something under my jacket. This time. I make absolutely no promises for next time.” I put my hands on my hips, spreading my jacket open just wide enough for him to catch a glimpse of the dress beneath.

He did a double take, composure completely disappearing for a moment as his eyes lingered on my short hemline. He swallowed roughly. “You look—“

“Slutty?” I supplied good-naturedly.

His eyes snapped up to my face. “I was going to say breathtaking.”

“You don’t think it’s too much? Or, too little as the case may be?” I tugged at the hem of my dress semi-self-consciously.

His eyes snapped back up to my face. “Not at all. It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”

“Hardly.” I snorted, face flushing at the compliment. “Am I dressed appropriately for your evening of surprises?”

“Yes.”

“Still not going to tell me what we’re doing?”

“No.”

In my heels the top of my head was level with the tip of his nose instead of just barely being level with his shoulders. My eyes slipped back to his jacket, and I took a step towards him, sliding my fingers under the monstrosity of a collar.“You know, now that we’re sleeping together I feel like I can comfortably say something about this…”

“What?” He seemed distracted by our sudden close proximity.

“Your jacket. What the hell is up with this collar?” I tugged gently at said collar for emphasis.

He frowned, hands covering mine. “I thought you said it was fancy.”

“I said it was _fancy_. There’s a difference.” I teased.

“You don’t like it?”

I bit my lip, lowering my voice to a murmur, “Personally, I prefer you sweaty, naked, and underneath me.”

A blush that had little to do with the cold crept across his cheeks. “That’s not very practical for winter.”

“Speaking of things that aren’t very practical for winter…” I leaned up to his ear, catching it gently in my teeth. “I’m not wearing any panties.”

His hands tightened over mine a fraction. “Maker’s breath. Are you always so…forward?”

“Yes. I like how we’ve discussed this, and you’re somehow still surprised.” I pulled away with a grin, pausing just in front of his face. “So…is there a reason why you haven’t kissed me yet?”

His hand moved up to cup my cheek. “Actually, yes. Once I start, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop, and we have a reservation to make.”

“I _suppose_ that’s a good reason.” I took a step back. “I guess I can behave to make this a little easier on you.”

 

The restaurant was very fancy.

When we drove up to the front door, a valet was waiting to take Cullen's car.

I had never been at a restaurant with valet parking.

We checked our jackets, then we were escorted to a table just off the dance floor.

I noted with a bit of satisfaction that I wasn’t the only elf in the dining room. Normally places like this had an unspoken rule about the kind of people who were _actually_ welcome within their walls.

The room was lit with twinkling lights that practically dripped from the ceiling. I had no trouble seeing in the dimly lit room, but I imagined that Cullen might have some issues navigating while his eyes adjusted. The tables had white tablecloths and fancy place settings. There was a dance floor in the middle of the room.

Cullen pulled out my chair for me, then he took his seat across the table.

I glanced over at the semi-packed dance floor. “Dinner _and_ dancing? Wow. You must really like me.”

“Yes, I do. I just hope you enjoy your evening.”

“Honestly, I’m like the easiest person in the world to impress when it comes to this sort of thing. No one has ever bought me flowers. I’ve never been dancing, or on a picnic. None of the quintessential romance stuff. If I were wearing panties, they would drop so fast.” I slid my foot up his leg, delighting in the way he nearly dropped his glass of water.

 

We ordered the house special—steak, with mashed potatoes, and seasonal vegetables—and made small talk until the waiter returned with our orders.

“Would you rather live in a cabin in the mountains, or a on a tropical island?” I asked, cutting into my steak. 'Would you rather' was always a good game to play when trying to get to know someone better.

“A cabin in the mountains. There’s no contest there.”

“Really? You don’t like being warm?”

“I would much rather be warm in front of a roaring fire with you in my arms, than perspiring uncomfortably on a tropical island.”

“Fair. I would pick a cabin in the mountains too. My hair does really weird things when it’s humid…and I get super cranky when I’m too warm. Also, that fire thing sounds nice. Would you rather be someone’s first love, or their last love forever?”

He chewed on his steak thoughtfully for a moment. “Last love. You?”

“Last. Definitely. First loves hold a special place in your heart, but it doesn’t tend to last. Mine certainly didn’t.”

“Tell me about him. Your first love.”

My first love was a safe topic. My first boyfriend was a different story entirely. “He was a boy at summer camp. I was…I want to say nine years old? He held my hand every night at the campfire. He had the bluest eyes and the blackest hair. And he was absolutely covered in freckles. He seduced me with his awkwardness. He was my first kiss, the first boy to make me feel butterflies in my stomach. We haven’t seen one another in fifteen years, but I’m pretty sure we’re technically still dating. I don’t remember actually officially breaking up with him when the summer was over. What about you? Who was your first love?”

“There was one woman I was semi-serious about before I left for Kinloch Hold. There wasn’t anyone before her. We were young. Too young and inexperienced for our relationship to survive the physical distance that my assignment would have put between us. We broke things off more or less amicably. After I left, she joined the Wardens.”

“Where is she now?”

“Married. To a man named Alistair. They have two children last I heard. Mia feels that it is prudent to keep me informed of her happiness.”

“Does it bother you? That she moved on and met someone else?”

“No,” he replied honestly. “She will always have a place in my heart, as you said. But things haven’t been easy for her, and I wish her every happiness that life is willing to give.”

“What about your more recent love life?”

“I have been in a handful of relationships, but none really worth mentioning.”

“Is that code for tons of casual sex?”

“Oh, I, err—“ He looked uncomfortable that I had seen through his clever misdirection so easily.

“If it will make you feel better I’ll tell you my _number_.”

“You don’t—“

“I know you’re curious though. Admit it.”

He relaxed his shoulders. “I’ll confess to interest in the subject, yes.”

“Was that so hard?” I teased. “Not including you, I’ve been with two men. And you punched one of them in the face last Friday.”

“And the other?”

“The other was my boyfriend on and off for just about three years while I was in high school. We broke up for good seven years ago when I moved away for college. If you're not comfortable with it, you don’t have to tell me your number. I don’t expect you to tell me all of your deepest, darkest, secrets.” I certainly wouldn’t be telling him all of mine. Not tonight anyway.

He contemplated for a moment. “Six, aside from you.”

“Really? That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“I expected a much higher number. Double digits at least.”

He looked baffled. “Why?”

“Because you’re very attractive.”

“I’m also very busy with my work. I don’t have much time for a social life.”

“Oh.” I tried not to sound too disappointed.

“For you, I am more than willing to make time.” His fingertips brushed my knuckles before his hand settled over mine.

“Oh.” I said again, this time I felt my face heat. “Of your six, only one was a semi-serious relationship?”

“The others were women I was seeing casually. So, you weren’t with _anyone_ for seven years?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“A little bit, yes. You’re beautiful and funny and you have quite a mouth on you.”

“I haven’t really had time to date. And I haven’t been interested in anyone.” I shrugged. “It’s not like I didn’t...you know, _take care of myself_. As I’m sure you could have guessed based on the fact that you…you know…heard me inadvertently putting on a show at the safe house.”

“Will there be a repeat performance? That’s a show that I would very much like a front row seat to.”

Oh, Creators. “I’m sure that could be arranged.”

“Are you…blushing?” The corner of his mouth quirked up. “This has to be a first.”

I tried to scowl, but I couldn’t quite pull it off. “For all my flirting…I’m not particularly experienced in the sex department. The thought of casual sex really doesn’t do it for me, and after the way my relationship ended I wasn’t exactly keen on jumping head first into another long term thing.”

“What happened between the two of you?”

I really should have expected a follow up question with a statement like that. “Let’s just say our parting wasn’t particularly…amicable. And there’s also the whole ‘I like to be roughed up a little’ thing and it’s sort of…awkward? I guess that’s the right word. It’s awkward working that into a pre-sex conversation without killing the mood.”

The corner of his mouth tugged up into a smile. “You managed with me.”

“That’s…” I poked at my potatoes with my fork. “It’s because I feel comfortable with you.”

“You do?”

“I can’t really explain it…but I feel like I’ve known you for years.” I set down my fork.

“I feel the same way. Are you ready?”

“For?” The only thing that came to mind was sex. Since that’s what we had literally just been talking about.

“Dancing.”

Oh.

Right.

That was a thing that happened here.

My gaze slid to the dance floor.

Well-dressed couples twirled round and round in some variation or other of the waltz.

My eyes followed them warily. “I’ve got to admit, I’m a little nervous. As I sort of mentioned earlier, I’ve never been dancing.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got you.” He stood and offered his hand to help me out of my seat, spinning me neatly against his chest. He obviously knew what he was doing.

“Where did you learn how to dance?” I let out an elated giggle against his shoulder.

“Mia insisted that we all take lessons for her wedding. Some things can’t be unlearned I’m afraid.”

“No, it’s wonderful. I wish I knew how to dance.”

“It’s not overly difficult. I can teach you.”

“You’re going to have to unless you want me to embarrass both of us.” My heels were higher than I normally would have felt comfortable dancing in, but I trusted him not to let me trip over my own feet.

He held out his hand and I placed mine in it tentatively. My other hand went to his shoulder, and his other hand rested at my hip.

My skin tingled with awareness at his proximity.

We hadn’t been this close in nearly four days.

“Just follow my feet.” His voice was confident. Assured. And tinged with just a little bit of heat.

I did as he said, managing to only step on his toes once. It was a good thing that I had a decent sense of rhythm, or things could have gotten very ugly, very fast.

“There, you look as if you’ve been dancing your entire life.” He sent me a pleased smile.

“You're a very good teacher. And I mean, technically I have been dancing my entire life, but none of those moves would be particularly welcome in front of this crowd. There’s generally a lot more gyrating hip movement involved.”

“I would like to see that.”

“Feed me enough liquor and you will.”

The song came to an end and his hand settled on my jaw, guiding my face up to his.

I shook my head, my nose just brushing his. “I really do hate to be the voice of reason, but I believe you said something about not being able to stop kissing me once you started. And we’re in public you know.”

“I seem to have forgotten that fact.” His voice was low and husky against my lips. I felt his lips pull into a slow smile. “Spend the night with me.”

I pulled back and grinned up at him. “Someone’s a little demanding.”

“That was _supposed_ to be a question,” he huffed apologetically. “Let me try that again. Would you like to spend the night with me at my place?”

“Yes. Very much so.” It didn’t matter that I had class in the morning. I wanted nothing more than to spend the night in his bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another week, another chapter down.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	19. Confession

Cullen’s home was an older style town house, its brick face and cheery blue door sandwiched between similar dwellings. He had a small front yard, a waist-high wrought-iron fence encircling it. There was a single frost covered tree beside the walkway leading to his front door.

His neighborhood would be considered _much_ nicer than my own. It was the sort of place someone could raise a family. I vaguely wondered if he had bought it with that sort of thing in mind.

Kids were a long way off for me. I was at a point in my life where I could barely take care of myself, much less someone totally and completely dependent on me.

Our first real date was hardly the time to be thinking about things like that though. That was a discussion best saved for our _third_ date at the earliest. Or _never_ , if I could possibly avoid it. I was having fun with him, and I didn't want to wreck that by talking about our future.

As soon as we walked through the front door, he wasted no time pinning me up against it. His mouth was harsh against mine, unrelenting as his hand slid my dress up my thighs.

I pushed his jacket off his shoulders.

My jacket followed, and before I could even blink, I was standing in his front entry wearing my high heels and not a damn thing more.

I moved to kick them off.

His teeth found my ear, biting and sucking at the sensitive lobe. “Leave your shoes.”

“You want me wearing nothing but my heels when you fuck me?” I let out a surprised giggle as hoisted my legs up around his waist. The mirth gave way to a moan as his rock hard cock settled against me.

“That’s the plan, yes.” He rested his forehead against mine, exhaling heavily. “I meant to offer you a tour first, but it would appear that that will have to wait. I can’t seem to keep my hands off of you.”

“Good. I want them on me.” I smashed a kiss to his lips, twining my fingers through his hair. “You can show me around _after_ you fuck me.”

He grunted some sort of agreement and I was only dimly aware of him carrying me up a set of stairs, my attention too focused on kissing him.

He paused briefly to press me against the wall and kiss me properly. My arm reached up, searching for purchase as his hips dug deliciously into mine. I wiggled against him, trying to find some relief against the achy feeling quickly building at my core.

He stumbled down a hallway, then through a door, then he tossed me down on a bed, his eyes roaming over my naked body in slow appreciation. The lust in his eyes fueled the fire burning inside me.

“Why are you still fully clothed?” I huffed impatiently, reaching up to undo his belt buckle.

He pushed me back down on the bed, pinning my hands above my head.

I strained against his grip. “If you want me to keep my hands to myself, you’re going to have to restrain them.”

He smiled down at me devilishly. “That can be arranged.”

He let go of my hands and loosened his tie before pulling it completely from his neck. He secured one of my wrists, looping the tie through the headboard before securing the other.

“How’s that? Not too tight?” His voice was low, filled with desire.

I gave my bonds a testing tug. “Nope. It’s good.”

“Excellent.” He crawled on top of me, kissing each wrist in turn, before starting a path down my neck, between my breasts, and down stomach, licking and biting and sucking as he went.

He paused, his breath warm against the slick flesh of my wanting core.

I shivered, hips squirming. “What are you doing?”

“I want to taste you.”

That sent a small amount of panic through me. My ex had never gone down on me, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted Cullen down there either. What if he didn’t like it? What if _I_ didn’t like it? I didn’t want to shatter this moment with my ill-timed insecurities. “And I want you to get naked and fuck me.”

“You aren’t exactly in any position to be making demands.” His smile turned almost predatory as he crawled back up the bed. His finger brushed against my clit, then slid lower, sinking into me, moving in slow teasing strokes inside me.

“ _Please_ , _Cullen_. ” My words came out as a breathy little moan. I clenched around his finger. He had barely touched me and I was already about to combust. I was completely at his mercy. “I _need_ you to fuck me.”

His breath hitched at the desperation in my voice, and he hurriedly stripped off his clothes.

He reached over and grabbed something from his nightstand.

A condom.

He settled between my thighs, spreading my legs wide.

I exhaled a slight whimper as he sank into me slowly, stretching me.

“Are you all right?” He murmured against my collarbone. “Do you want me to keep going?”

I nodded frantically, not trusting myself to make any noise other than a moan.

He began to move at a slow deliberate pace, pulling out almost completely before languidly entering me again.

“ _Please_.” I whimpered, angling my hips up.

“Please what?” He nuzzled the side of my neck, clearly taking a small amount of enjoyment in my frustration. His stubble tickled my shoulder.

“ _Harder_.”

He grabbed one of my legs, hiking it up and resting the back of my thigh against his shoulder.

He let out a groan as the slight change in position forced him deeper. “Maker's breath.”

My fingers wrapped around the tie, anchoring me in place as his thrusts grew quicker, more forceful.

With my leg hitched up the way that it was the angle was _just_ right for his pubic bone to provide delicious friction against my clit.

His teeth sank into the side of my neck.

His fingers teased at my nipple, twisting, pinching.

My fingers ached with how hard I gripped the tie.

I was reduced to a useless lump of sensation—of pain, of pleasure—wound so tightly that it wouldn't be long before I completely unraveled.

“Oh, _fuck_.” I moaned as the tightly coiled pleasure sprang, plunging me head first into orgasm, leaving me gasping for breath.

His tempo slowed, encouraging the little shudders to linger.

He pulled out completely, then flipped me onto my stomach, gripping my hips and hauling my ass up in the air.

A little thrill went through me at the rough handling.

Thankfully, he had left enough slack on the tie that my wrists weren’t twisted uncomfortably. He gave me approximately one second to adjust to the new position, then he slid back into me, picking up the punishing tempo.

His grip on me turned near bruising as he snapped my hips repeatedly against his own. I bucked back against him and he wound my hair around one hand, giving it a pleasantly firm tug, forcing my back to arch. His other hand found my clit, fingers sliding through the obscene amount of wetness that had gathered there.

As he savagely pounded into me, heat built within me, starting at my core, radiating out until every inch of me was engulfed in flames.

I detonated, exploding with his name on my lips.

“Maker’s breath,” he groaned, slumping over me slightly as he held my ass tight against his hips.

He twitched deep inside me, breath ragged.

I held still until his breathing evened out. I gave my hips a little shimmy, subtly hinting at him to get off of me.

He took the hint, withdrawing from my body, and rolling me onto my back.

With heartbreaking tenderness, he removed my shoes, dropping them on the floor by the bed. Then he gently untied my wrists, lowering and massaging first one arm, then the other.

His fingers lingered at my wrists where faint bruises had already started to form. He kissed them almost apologetically. “You would tell me if something I did wasn’t all right, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course. I’m not in the habit of letting people get away with things that make me uncomfortable.” At least, I wasn’t in that habit anymore. If this was how he reacted to bruises on my skin, then I could never tell him about my past. Either he would never look at me the same way again, or it would destroy him.

“Good…Still…” His fingers grazed my cheek. “I worry that I’m being too rough with you.”

My fingers settled over his, twining between them. “You aren’t. You’re not doing anything I don’t want.”

“And you’ll let me know if that changes?”

“I promise.”

“Good.” He drew me into his arms, pressing a chaste kiss against my temple.

 

I woke up a little after midnight.

We had fallen asleep in a tangle of limbs.

I stared up at the moon, it’s glowing surface visible through the skylight about the bed.

I couldn’t remember a time when I had felt this content.

And it only had a little bit to do with the sex—which in and of itself was wholly satisfying.

It had been a long time since I had shared a bed with someone other than Sera—which of course had been purely non-sexual.

I genuinely liked spending time with Cullen even outside of the bedroom—or kitchen, or couch, or entryway.

In the short time we’d been together, he made me feel things I had never really felt before.

He made me feel cherished.

He made me feel respected.

Most of all, he made me feel _safe_.

Safety was something a lot of people took for granted.

I could muse about safety later though.

In that moment, I had more pressing matters to attend to.

I was absolutely famished.

Apparently sex worked up an appetite.

Who knew?

Cullen was fast asleep.

And I didn’t want to wake him.

I was fairly confident that I could locate his kitchen on my own.

I reached up and brushed an unruly lock of hair from his forehead.

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, making me think for a moment that I had awoken him.

But he didn’t stir further.

I carefully disentangled myself from his embrace.

I grabbed his shirt off the floor, buttoning approximately half of the buttons as I carefully tiptoed out into the hallway. My dress was somewhere downstairs in the immediate vicinity of the front door.

The sleeves of his shirt were miles too long, and the shirt itself was longer than my dress had been. It also smelled strongly of him.

It fit me exactly the way that I had hoped it would. I was comfortably wrapped up in him. It reinforced the feeling of safety.

On my way down the stairs I righted the picture frames we had knocked askew in our hasty ascent. They were all family photos as far as I could tell, Cullen and his brother and sisters at different points during their childhood, each picture very obviously taken a few years after the one preceding it. There was a family resemblance, all four of them were blonde. Cullen and his younger sister both had honey coloured eyes. His older sister and brother had blue-green eyes.

One picture stood out to me. A little blonde boy with a mop of golden curls proudly holding up a fish towards a man that looked remarkably like Cullen did now, except his hair was a few shades darker and slightly graying at the temples. His eyes were the same blue-green as Mia and Branson's. Cullen and his father.

The most recent photo on the wall seemed to be taken at Cullen’s graduation from the Police academy. He was wearing an officer’s uniform and holding a diploma. He was grinning broadly, the scar that resided on his lip now was absent. He looked so much younger, untroubled. He hadn’t yet been exposed to the horrors that my Cullen had.

Not that he was _my_ Cullen.

We had only been together for four days. It was ridiculous to think of him as belonging to me.

I shook my head and finished my descent, managing to find the kitchen on my first try. The kitchen was separated from the living room by a swinging door.

The fridge was more or less empty.

There was some beer, condiments, and something that looked like it might have been a vegetable at one point, but it had given up on that dream a long ass time ago.

I frowned, moving to the freezer.

With the exception of the food from the safe house that I had practically had to force on him, the freezer was filled with TV dinners.

Muffled footsteps in the hall interrupted my unsuccessful foraging.

The kitchen door swung open and Cullen entered the room, leaning against the doorframe.

I turned to look at him, propping my hip against the counter.

He was wearing a pair of red flannel pajama pants slung low on his hips. “I was worried that you had gone.”

“I wouldn’t leave in the middle of the night. That’s just tacky. I’m going to annoy you until you kick me out.”

“And that’s better?” He raised an amused eyebrow.

“Infinitely.”

His gaze lingered on my bare legs before drifting up, taking in the hastily buttoned line from my mid thigh to the bottom of my ribcage. “Is that my shirt?”

“Sorry, I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“I don’t mind at all.” He moved towards me, stopping to lean against the counter beside me. “In fact, I…rather like the way that it looks on you.”

“Then maybe I’ll keep it.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “I honestly wouldn’t mind if you did. What brings you down to my kitchen this late? Shouldn’t you be asleep? You have class in the morning.”

I shrugged. “I was hungry. How do you survive with your fridge like this?”

“I eat out.” It was his turn to shrug. “And also, as I mentioned before I consume a lot of TV dinners.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I was really hoping that you were joking about those.”

“I was not.”

“You know they have the nutritional value of cardboard, right?”

“I simply have other things I would rather spend my free time on than cooking.”

“Like playing chess and boinking college students?” I moved closer, slinging my arms around his neck.

“’Boinking’?” His nose wrinkled.

I nodded, grinning at his distaste. “Yes. We boinked.”

“You’re going to refer to sex as ‘boinking’ from now on, aren’t you?”

“Yup. Best get used to it.”

He shook his head with an exasperated smile.

“Now, we’re going to have to fix your whole fridge situation if you want me to spend any extended amount of time here. I’ve grown quite fond of eating. I’ve been doing it for years now.”

“All right.” He nodded, one hand resting gently on my hip. “If you’ve the time, I will take you grocery shopping on Saturday.”

“I think I can clear my oh-so-busy schedule. Until then, we should have the next sleep over at my place.”

“I live alone and I have a king size bed.” He reminded me, unnecessarily seeing as I had just spent the last four hours in said bed.

“So? I might have a roommate and a small bed, but I make up for that with real food in the house.”

“Fair point.”

“So…Friday night?”

“I would like that. Now,” he brought his hand up to my rest on my cheek, “would you like a real tour now that you’ve had your way with me?”

I felt my pulse flutter, and worked to keep my voice steady. “Sure. That would be lovely.”

He started the tour in the living room, explaining that there used to be a separate formal dining room too, but he had knocked down a couple of walls in favor of having a larger living room, since he didn’t exactly host an abundance of fancy dinners.

The space was very masculine, rich brown leather furniture, red and gold accents littering the room. There was a big screen TV, and shelves lined with books and movies.

The main floor also housed a cute little half bath with a pedestal sink under the stairs.

There was another door beside it, this one leading to the basement, but he assured me that the space was unfinished and rather boring, and the only thing even remotely interesting down there was the washer and dryer.

There were two full bathrooms upstairs, one in the master suite, and the other sandwiched between two more bedrooms. One bedroom was being used an office space. The other was a guest room.

I let out a low whistle as I took in the tastefully decorated room and the made up bed. “Wow. Your place has a guest room. You’re like an actual grown-up.”

He gave me a confused look. “Thank you? Was my adulthood in question?”

I shrugged. “No, it’s just impressive to me, that’s all. I mean, you have your own grown-up place with furniture that looks like it came from an actual store. Sera found our couch in an alleyway by a dumpster.”

“Really?” His nose wrinkled slightly.

“I cleaned it.” I shrugged again. “So, you live here alone?”

“Yes, as I mentioned earlier.”

“This is…” I looked around the room again, taking it all in. “A lot of space for one person.”

He shrugged. “It was within my price range at the time I was looking.”

“So you’ve never…” I fidgeted, not sure how to tactfully ask my next question. “You’ve never had an opposite gender roommate that you slept in the same bed as?”

“Are you asking if I’ve lived here with former girlfriends?”

“Yes. That would be how an adult would ask that question.”

A smile tugged at his lips. “No. I haven’t ever lived with anyone I was involved with. In fact, you’re the first woman I’ve ever brought here.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Oh.”

I was the first woman he had ever brought home.

Did that make me special?

I had to wonder, how serious were things between us?

How serious did I want them to be?

I was getting far too far ahead of myself. We had only been on one date. It wasn't like he was asking me to move in with him.

 

I woke up early Saturday morning. Cullen had picked me up from school Friday and made good on his word, spending the night at my place.

Sera hadn’t been too happy about the additional _noise_ , but I had endured nearly seven years of sharing a wall with her while she brought home dates. She could handle a single evening of inconvenient noises coming from my room.

I sat up with a stretch, looking down at Cullen’s sleeping form and feeling my heart swell.

I bent over, searching for my shirt.

A low moan had me turning back to look at him.

His brow was furrowed, hands clutching at the blankets. “No. Leave me. Leave me.”

“Cullen?” I placed my hand gently on his chest.

He jolted into a sitting position, startling my hand from his clammy skin.

He took a few deep breaths, eyes unfocused and wild as he tried to ground himself in reality. It probably didn’t help that we were in my slightly unfamiliar bedroom, on my cramped twin bed.

“Cullen?” I asked again, this time cautiously. “Are you all right?”

After another moment of deep breaths, he finally turned to look at me, running a hand over his face. “I—yes. I apologize.”

“Bad dream?”

“They always are. Since I stopped taking lyrium, they’re worse.” He stared down at his hands, fisting them in the blanket. “I had hoped to spare you from seeing me like this.”

“Cullen...I don't want you to feel like you have to hide parts of yourself from me. Bad dreams aren't going to scare me off.”

He placed a hand on my cheek. “Did I wake you?”

I shook my head, placing my hand over his. “I’m always up early. It doesn’t matter what time I go to bed. I can’t sleep past 7am. It’s a curse, really.”

“Well, I apologize regardless. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

I bit my lip, eyes going to the noticeable tent at his lap. “I know of one way you can make it up to me.”

“Oh?”

I nodded, pushing him back down to the bed as I straddled his hips.

“What about Sera?” He asked with a nervous glance at mine and Sera’s shared wall, probably having flashbacks of her throwing what sounded like several pairs of shoes at it the previous evening.

I smirked down at him. “She’s not invited.”

“Andraste preserve me,” he huffed, cheeks going pink, “that is not what I meant and you know it.”

“She won’t be home until later. We can be as loud as we want.”

“In that case, carry on.”

I had something very specific in mind for making him feel better.

It had been a long time since I had actually given a blowjob. It wasn’t something that I had particularly enjoyed in my previous _relationship_ , but I was quickly learning that things in general were much more enjoyable with Cullen.

I started a trail of kisses from his collarbone, down his chest.

He inhaled sharply. “I don’t wish to speak against my own interests, but how is this making things up to you?”

“Hush.” I replied, nipping at his stomach.

His stomach tensed and he let out a huff of laughter. “I don’t suppose that I can argue with that.”

“No,” I agreed, taking him in my hand. “You can’t.”

He started to sit up, leaning on his elbows. “Would you feel more comfortable if I grabbed a con—“

“I want to taste you. And…” I looked up at him in what I hoped was an appropriately seductive manner. “I want to feel your cum dripping down the back of my throat.”

"Ah. Carry on then." He laid back down, his cock twitching against my palm.

I ran my tongue from base to tip, curling it around the underside, leaving a hot wet trail.

His breath hitched as I repeated the motion.

I took him into my mouth slowly.

“Oh, fuck.” The words came out as a low groan, carried from his lips in a deep exhale of breath as the head of his cock brushed the back of my throat.

I had never heard anything more explicit than ‘Maker’s breath’ leave those lips. I tried not to feel too pleased with myself over the fact that I had made him lose his composure enough to _actually_ swear.

I pulled back, gasping playfully and letting my hand continue the up and down motion. “You said a bad word!”

“It would appear that you are rubbing off on me.”

“I think I would prefer it if you were the one rubbing off on me.” I winked.

“That’s—I can’t believe you just said that.” He gave a husky chuckle. “Are you proud of that one?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “I stand by it.”

I refocused my attention on the task at hand, taking him into my mouth as far as he could possibly go. I started a slow rhythm, adjusting to the feel of him in my mouth.

As he got impossibly harder against my tongue, I worked his length with a single-minded focus.

“If you keep that up,” he exhaled slowly, as if trying to retain his composure, “this will be over embarrassingly fast.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that as long as you’re enjoying yourself.” I replied evenly, giving him another firm stroke, my mouth following my hand down his length before resuming my pace, enthusiastically taking him as far down my throat as he could possibly go.

He groaned and his fingers wound in my hair, holding me in place as he came down my throat. He was still for a moment as I licked him clean.

I bit my lip as I met his gaze. “Was that—“

“Amazing. You are amazing,” he said breathlessly, pulling me up his body and into a brief kiss.

“You’re just saying that cause I sucked your dick.” I gave him a lopsided grin, trying to ignore the stuttering of my pulse at his words.

“As much as I do enjoy the feel of your tongue, I truly mean it. I have…never met a woman like you.”

“That’s really sweet of you to say.” I really didn’t do well with praise of any kind. My first instinct was to run away. Which is what I started to do.

His hand caught at my waist. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To make some coffee.” I gestured toward the kitchen. “It’s time to get out of bed. Isn’t it?”

He shook his head. “I do believe there’s a matter of…reciprocation that needs to be settled.”

That nervous feeling from a few nights ago resurfaced. “You don’t have to—“

He silenced me with a look. “I want to. But I won’t continue to push if you aren’t comfortable with it. Do you want me to taste you?”

I bit my lip and hesitated for a moment before nodding. What did I have to lose?

“Good.” He pushed me down onto the bed and crawled on top of me, settling between my slightly spread legs. He kissed me hard and fast, hooking his hands behind my knees. I let out a surprised giggle as he dragged me to the edge of the bed. He kneeled on the floor, throwing my legs casually over his shoulders.

He nipped at the inside of each thigh in turn before placing an open mouthed kiss against the lace of my panties. I couldn’t think past the heat of his mouth, nevermind breathing.

He pulled my panties to one side, and I let out a gasp as his tongue made contact with my clit.

He licked me slowly, reverently, drawing from me a mixed symphony of gasps and moans.

He slid one finger into me and I arched up to meet his touch, inadvertently pressing his face harder against me. He settled one hand on my stomach, using it to pin my hips in place.

He added another finger, moving at a maddeningly unhurried pace, perfectly content to draw out his exploration of my body.

Without warning, his fingers curled inside me, the pace of his tongue quickening a fraction and causing me to nearly lose my mind.

My fingers caught in his hair, gently guiding him down just a little bit and—

“Cullen! Fuck! Creators!” I gasped out. “Right there, don’t stop!”

Spurred by my increased vocalization of my appreciation, he increased the pressure of his tongue against me, sliding it side to side over my clit.

My world narrowed to that single point, the press of his tongue, the insistent push of his fingers buried deep inside me.

I moaned, fingers tightening in his hair, body tensing and shaking as my climax hit me fast and strong.

He removed his fingers and drew his tongue up my slit, pulling one final quiver from my over stimulated body.

He wiped his hand across his mouth, smirking at a job well done as he crawled up the bed to lie beside me.

He extended his arm and I curled up against his side.

“That was like a million times better than I imagined it would be.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

“You imagined me going down on you?” His smirk lingered.

“No—well, yes actually. You were sort of the…uh… _inspiration_ that morning at the safe house.” I felt my face heat as I dug myself deeper into my hole. “But I meant—no one has ever…you were the first guy to ever _actually_ go down on me.”

He frowned. “You were with a man for the better part of three years and he never—“

“He told me he tried it with other girls and didn’t like the taste.” I shrugged. He had also never given me an orgasm, but that was an entirely different story, one I thankfully didn’t blurt out on a whim.

“Then he was an ass.” His arm tightened around me.

“No argument there.”

“I rather enjoy the way you taste.” His eyes had drifted closed and a peaceful smile had settled on his face.

I couldn’t help but stare at him, a full feeling expanding in my chest until I thought I would burst.

“I think I might be falling in love with you.” The admission came from my lips before I could fully process exactly what I was saying.

Oh, no.

No, no, no.

Shit.

Why the fuck had I said that?

Fucking endorphins.

His grip loosened, his eyes opened and he stared down at me in complete and utter bewilderment. “What?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a day later than I intended.
> 
> All the sexy times, plus some of the awkward post orgasm confessions, yay!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	20. Comfort

I might as well have _actually_ confessed my love for him for all of the alarm he was displaying.

He hadn’t said a single word beyond the initial exclamation of surprise.

With those ten thoughtless words had I ruined the best thing to ever happen to me?

Was this where he decided I was a nut job and I wasn’t worth the trouble?

Was my little lapse in rational thinking the straw that broke the horse’s back?

Everything between us had been absolutely perfect, and a good first step in helping to heal my broken bits little by little.

And now I had royally fucked it up.

The silence stretched on between us, and it was almost like he was waiting for the punch line to some terrible joke that he didn’t quite understand.

“I’m not sure that I’ve ever been caught quite so off guard before.” He mused up at the ceiling, breaking his stunned silence.

I cringed as I rolled out of his slackened embrace. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and I began picking at my nails nervously. “Sorry, that just kind of slipped out. I didn’t mean—I shouldn’t have—Sorry.”

He shifted on the bed behind me. “Renna, I—“

I was mortified. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, I didn’t want to see the absolute terror that I just knew my impulsive words had caused. He was probably getting ready to make a break for the door, and just trying to figure out the most tactful way to do it. “I know we’ve only been together for a week, and it’s way too soon to be saying stupid shit like that.”

“Renna—“

I gave a small defeated sigh. “You don’t feel the same way. I totally get it.”

“Renna—“

“Just forget I said anything. Please.”

His hand gently cupped my cheek, forcing me to turn and face him. He pressed his lips against mine, effectively silencing me. The kiss lingered, turning deeper, more urgent. He encouraged me onto his lap, hands gripping desperately at my hips, pulling me down against—

That was a rock hard cock.

I let out a moan.

He pulled away from the kiss, a small smile on his lips, to rest his forehead against mine. “Renna.”

“Yes, Cullen?” I asked breathlessly.

“I feel the same.” He took my hand in his, studying the way our fingers laced together.

“You do?” I couldn’t help but stare into his eyes with wonder.

“I know that we haven’t known one another for very long, but I have never felt like this before. About anyone.”

"I—"

A dull buzzing sound shattered the moment.

Cullen looked at me apologetically, then reached behind me to the nightstand, grabbing his phone.

He frowned down at the screen. “It’s Cassandra’s work number. Would you give me a moment please?”

“Sure.” I nodded, a dopey grin on my face, still floating from his words. “I’ll go make that coffee.”

I scrambled off his lap and quickly dressed, leaving the room. I closed the door behind myself to give him the privacy he had requested.

He emerged a few minutes later, tugging a t-shirt on over his jeans.

“What was that about?” I asked, aiming for a casual tone, although I’m fairly certain that my grin could be seen from outer space at that point.

He met my gaze guiltily. “I’m needed at the precinct today. I apologize.”

“Oh.” I tried not to let my face fall. We had spent a perfectly lovely morning together confessing our almost love for one another and licking one another’s bits. Wanting anything more could reasonably be considered selfish. “There’s nothing you need to apologize for, Cullen.”

“I told you that we could spend the day together.”

“It’s your job, Cullen.” I replied with forced nonchalance. “I’m not going to hold it against you.”

“I still feel that I should make it up to you. I can take you out to dinner, or perhaps we can see a movie if you’d like?”

“I just want to spend time with you, it honestly doesn’t matter what we do. What time do you need to leave by?”

“I have a little over an hour before I’m expected.”

“Good. Sit and have coffee with me.”

He did as I asked, taking a seat on the couch.

I handed him a mug of freshly brewed heaven. “Would you like some toast?”

“Sure, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Of course not.” I set to work toasting a couple of slices of my famous—to Sera and I, anyway—homemade bread. “Why do you have to go in today?”

“I apologize. I can’t discuss the details.”

“It’s okay. We can talk about something else.” I thought for a moment. “How about this: I’ve got the official Police sanctioned evaluation of my living situation…now that you’ve spent the night here, what do you think of my place from a boyfriend point of view?”

He sputtered into his coffee. “Boyfriend?”

“Is that not what you are?” I froze, keeping my smile carefully in place.

Shit.

Why couldn’t I just keep my stupid mouth shut?

What was wrong with me?

He had taken my last little outburst more or less in stride and—

“I suppose that I am.” He mused, wiping coffee from his chin.

I crossed my arms. “Well, if you don’t want to be—“

“No! I—It isn’t that. I was caught a little off guard. Once again. That’s all. It’s been…a very long time since I’ve been anyone’s boyfriend.”

I fidgeted with the butter knife, turning it over between my fingers, focusing every last ounce of my attention on not looking over at him. “If this is freaking you out, if _I’m_ freaking you out, just tell me and I’ll try to dial it back like a million percent.”

“No. I’m fine. You’re fine. I just need to adjust, that’s all. A lot of things are changing all at once and—Not that the changes you bring aren’t welcome ones, it’s—“ He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “I am happy to be your boyfriend. I _want_ to be your boyfriend. And as your boyfriend, I must admit I’m not entirely comfortable with the thought of you staying here long term. Or short term for that matter.”

“You’re being silly. Sera is my own personal Inquisition bodyguard. I am safe here.” I sank down next to him, handing him a plate of toast.

He took a bite of his toast, frowning. “The Inquisition assigned you a bodyguard?”

“Yeah. Well, technically, she assigned herself. But Leliana agreed that Detective Pentaghast was a little hasty in relieving me of my Police assigned bodyguard." I smiled over at him. "Not that that stopped him from spending last night in my bed.”

He shook his head. “Regardless, Sera won’t always be around, and I won’t be in your bed every night.”

“I know that. Some nights I’ll be in your bed.” I winked at him, drawing my feet up under myself. “I haven’t had any issues prior to your spending the night here.”

He gave me a dry look. “I heard a woman screaming last night. I was unsure if it was a...Maker's breath..." he cleared his throat uncomfortably, "a... _sex_ thing.”

I shrugged. “That was just Dave. _Probably_ should have warned you about him.”

“Dave?” He asked incredulously.

I nodded. “Well, technically it was Dave’s parrot. He taught the damn thing to scream. Midnight on the dot. Every. Single. Fucking. Night.”

“That’s—“ he paused, considering for a moment, “—incredibly suspicious, actually. We should put a pin in that. Back to the matter at hand, I would—“

“Cullen, I’ve lived here for seven years and we’ve only had three break ins. Not including Corypheus’ men.”

He took the final bite of his toast. “It is alarming to me that you think three break ins over the course of seven years is a perfectly acceptable number of break ins.”

“That’s because it is? The average in this neighborhood is at least one a month. Sera’s… _security system_ has been an excellent deterrent for the criminals in the area.” I stood with a stretch, effectively ending the conversation. “I should probably go do my yoga…did you want to join me?”

He gave me a slightly amused look. “I’m not particularly flexible, I’m afraid.”

“There’s only one way to fix that, my darling.” I returned his amused look.

“You’re…going to make me do yoga, aren’t you?” His amusement shifted to mild concern.

“Of course not. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

He gave a defeated sigh. “Seeing as it is a part of your usual routine, I…will give it a try.”

“Really?” I hadn’t actually expected him to accept my invitation.

“Try not to expect too much out of these old bones.”

I snorted. “You’re not old. Thirty-one isn’t old. If you’re worried about your flexibility or lack thereof, you could just watch me.”

He considered for a moment before shaking his head. “That seems rather voyeuristic.”

“Says the guy who said he wanted to watch me masturbate.”

The barest hint of red colored his cheeks. “That is an entirely different matter.”

“Yeah, that’s like a million times more ‘voyeuristic’.” I rolled my eyes, heading to my room to grab my yoga mat.

Normally I did my yoga in my bedroom, it was a tight squeeze, but I was tiny so I could make it work.

Cullen was far too tall to comfortably stretch out on my bedroom floor.

I stuck the mat on the floor in the middle of the living room, shifting the coffee table to the side.

I helped him into downward facing dog, gripping his hips and guiding them into the proper spot.

And that was how Sera found us.

She quirked her head to the side. “So…this is wot straight sex looks like. Yer bits ain’t even touchin’. And I’m no expert, but shouldn’t he be the one bent over ya?”

“Delightful as always, Sera.” Cullen commented dryly, dropping himself into a sitting position.

She shrugged. “I try.”

“The sex was earlier, Sera.” I interjected. “So much sex. All the sex. Sorry you missed it.”

She made a gagging noise. “Ugh. I’m not. Heard enough last night.”

Cullen glanced down at his watch. “I should probably be heading out.”

Sera’s eyes met mine inquisitively. “Was it somethin’ I said?”

“Nah. Cullen has to go into work today.”

He stood and pressed a quick kiss to my lips. “I’ll see you later.”

I smiled up at him. “Damn straight you will.”

His hand lingered on my cheek for a moment. “Just let me know when you decide what you would like to do this evening.”

“Bye, Detective hotpants! Love ya!” Sera flailed at him in a dramatic facsimile of a wave, blowing him a kiss.

“Sera.” He spared her a slightly amused nod. Then he was out the door.

“Ya’ve got it bad.” Sera commented dryly, flopping over the arm of the couch.

I stuck my tongue out at her.

“Ya seem…” her eyes lingered warily on the bruises at my wrists before moving to the ones on my neck, “…happy.”

I self-consciously tugged my sleeves down. “That’s because I am.”

“That’s what ya thought with—“ She cut herself off with a shake of her head. “Ya would tell me if it were the same thing, yeah?”

I took her concern with a grain of salt. She was just looking out for me after all. “I would. And it’s not.”

“So he’s not hurtin’ ya?”

“Define hurting.” Technically he _was_ hurting me, but it was definitely something that I wanted. Something that I craved.

She gave me an unimpressed look.

I sighed. “Not outside the bedroom.”

“And that’s somethin’ ya want?” She bit her lip. “Ya like to be hurt?”

“Yes. And I am fully aware of just how fucked up that is given my history in that particular area.”

She pressed on. “The two of ya seem to be spendin’ an awful lotta time together. Are ya sure ya wanna get this involved this fast? Look what happened with—“

“I—“ I took a deep breath, getting ready to tell her that I knew exactly what I was doing with Cullen. Then I realized that I had absolutely no fucking clue. “You’re right. What the hell _am_ I doing?”

“Shite.” She gave me a worried look. “Did I break ya?”

I got up and started pacing. “I don’t _do_ this, Sera. I don’t know how to maintain an adult relationship. I haven’t _really_ been with anyone since—“

“That had nothin’ to do with ya.”

“I let it happen, so it kind of did.”

“No.” She said firmly. “That was all ya know who. Those were his issues. Have ya told Cullen?”

“About my sordid dating history? No. Fuck no.” I frowned. “But I probably should tell him, shouldn’t I? _Before_ it becomes an issue.”

“Why would it be an issue? If he doesn’t accept ya for who ya are, then piss on him. He doesn’t deserve ya.”

“I’m in love with him.” I had lied when I told him that I _might_ be falling in love with him. I already knew that I was. And I also knew how absolutly and completely _stupid_ it was for me to even be thinking those words after a week of casually dating.

A knowing look spread across her face. “So _that’s_ why yer bein’ all weird and shite.”

“I know we haven’t even known each other three weeks…and I was technically with someone else for most of the time that we _have_ known each other…but—”

“I like him well enough.” Sera commented matter-of-factly in what I’m sure she thought was a reassuring manner. “And he seems to be head over heels for ya. Just be careful is all I’m sayin’. If he breaks yer heart, I'll break his face. Then fill his car with bees.”

On that unhelpful but well-meaning note, Sera left me to my anxious musing.

Of course I obsessed over thoughts of Cullen.

We were at two very different places in our lives. He had his shit together, and despite all of my appearances to the contrary, I very much did not. Sure, I was trying. Working hard to get my degree, working at Varric’s gas station, taking the odd job Sera offered, but emotionally, I was still a mess. I had never fully processed everything that had happened with my ex, and everything that had happened with Professor Solas hadn’t exactly expanded my self-esteem by leaps and bounds.

At least Cullen didn’t seem to see me as a sex object, but it did beg the question, what did he see me as?

What did he want from me?

And could I give it to him?

With those thoughts swirling round and round in my head, I went to the cupboard and started pulling out my baking ingredients one by one.

Baking always helped me clear my mind. Helped me think.

 

By the time Cullen returned to my apartment—late afternoon—the counters were filled with a variety of baked goods. My anxiety was nothing if not efficient.

“I did some baking.” I said in lieu of greeting.

“I can see that.” He glanced around the kitchen in mild bewilderment. “Is there any particular reason that it appears as if a bakery has exploded inside your home? I see four loaves of bread, an abundance of banana muffins, and two-dozen chocolate chip cookies.”

“Nope. No particular reason. And it’s three dozen cookies actually.” I corrected, pulling the third pan of cookies out of the oven.

“Ah, my mistake.”

I fidgeted with the ties on my apron. “Would you be all right with staying in tonight? We can go to your place, queue up some shitty documentaries, have a drink or five and see where the night leads us.”

“Of course.” He gave me a reassuring smile. “That sounds amazing.”

“Just let me get cleaned up and then we can be on our way.”

It took less than five minutes for me to make the kitchen—and myself—presentable.

I grabbed two loaves of bread and a large Tupperware container filled with cookies and muffins. I also grabbed my comically large bottle of vodka and some soda from the fridge.

The amusing tipsiness of wine drunk Renna wouldn’t do for the sort of conversation I had planned. I needed the solidity of the liquid courage provided by hard liquor.

We made our way into the hallway.

“Renna, wait.” He caught my wrist gently as I neared the stairs.

“Hmm? What is it?”

He brought his hand to my cheek. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Totally fine,” I lied as I leaned into his touch. I kept my eyes fixed on the floor, unable to meet his searching gaze for longer than a moment.

When we arrived at his place, I wasted no time pouring myself a drink that was basically half vodka and half soda.

Cullen eyed it warily as he poured himself a glass of whiskey; as if he were worried my concoction would melt a hole through my glass.

I settled onto his couch and downed about half of it in one go. It burned on the way down.

Concern worked its way through his features. “You’ve been unusually quiet since my return. Is something the matter?”

It was supremely difficult for me to talk about my dating history, but he had laid some of his traumatic past bare before me. At the very least, I owed him a little of the same consideration.

“It’s just…” I sucked in a deep breath, fingers absently worrying the hem of my shirt. The next words came out in a rush, “My last—my only relationship—prior to this was a fucking train wreck start to finish and I don’t know how to have a functional adult relationship and there are some things that you should probably know…” I picked at my nails, avoiding his gaze.

“This is obviously very difficult for you.” He placed his hand over mine, stilling my fingers, his other hand settled on my knee. “We don't have to have this discussion if you aren’t comfortable.”

“No. It’s…you should know exactly what you’re getting yourself into. As I mentioned the other night, my ex and I dated on and off while I was in high school. He was… _older_. By quite a bit. He was twenty-two. I was fifteen. We met at a party. One of the _benefits_ of having guardians that don’t give a fuck about your comings and goings.” I gave a harsh little laugh. “He had a bit of a temper. When things didn’t go exactly his way, he got very… _abusive_ very fast.” I would let him draw his own conclusions there. I wouldn’t elaborate. _Ever_ if I could avoid it. “And it fucked me up for a very long time.”

“So when Sera mentioned your ‘thing for older men’—“

I nodded, tangling my fingers together to keep myself from picking my nails into a bloody mess. “She was talking specifically about _him_. She didn’t approve. Fuck, I didn’t even approve, really. But I let it happen. I thought I was in love with him. I thought that I could change him. Make him gentler. I thought that if I loved him enough, he would love me back. But that wasn’t love. That was just hope. He broke up with me repeatedly over the course of the three years we were ‘together’. It was an excuse to fuck other girls without it being considered cheating, because he might have been a garbage person, but he prided himself on not being a cheater. I wasn’t allowed to move on. He made sure to scare off anyone that showed any interest in me, not that I even _wanted_ anyone else. When he got bored of his latest plaything, he would convince me to take him back. He was…incredibly persuasive, and I was…a bit of a doormat. Well, I suppose that it could probably be argued that I still am. The last time we broke up though was… _different_.” 

That was a fucking word for it. There were Police involved. The entire thing was a huge mess. I couldn't tell him about the Police involvement though. He might get curious and decide to look it up in the system. “I initiated it. I had been accepted to the Forensic Psychology program at the university, so I left home and moved here. I’ve tried to convince myself that school was the reason for my leaving, but the truth is, I had to fucking get away. I couldn’t be trapped in that hell spiral of a relationship for the rest of my life. I would have sooner taken my own life.” It might have been melodramatic, but it was true.

He was silent for a moment. Processing. “I am so sorry that you went through that.”

That barely scratched the surface. I couldn’t bring myself to fully tell him all of the horrors I had endured while I was in that relationship. There were certain things he was better off not knowing if he cared for me even a fraction as much as I hoped that he did.

I blew out a breath. “A part of me always kind of blamed myself for everything that happened with him. Because of how _flirty_ I am. How _inappropriate_ I am.”

“There is no excuse for his behavior. It doesn’t matter how flirtatious you are, it doesn’t give anyone the right to lay a finger on you.” His grip on my knee tightened a fraction. “He was a grown man taking advantage of a young girl. That isn’t your fault. He should have known it was inappropriate for him to engage in a relationship with you—sexual or otherwise.”

I nodded absently, sipping my drink. “A part of me knows that, I suppose. But it’s hard not to blame myself for everything that I let happen. After I moved here, I was… _different_ for a long time. I didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes, so I didn’t let myself get attached to anyone. Besides school and work, I hardly left the apartment. Sera was worried about me. It took awhile, but she finally managed to talk me into going out with her, and that’s how I ended up at the Divine Conclave.”

He processed that for a second. “So, the first time you went out in…”

“Seven years.” I supplied.

“Seven years. Maker’s breath. The first time you went out in seven years, you ended up witnessing a murder. That’s dreadful.”

I lifted one shoulder in a half shrug, finally looking up at him. A smile ghosted over my lips as I took him in. “Something good came out of it. I never would have met you if I hadn’t gone out that night.”

He gave me a self-deprecating smile. “I hardly think that I’m worth your getting involved in this mess.”

“I do. You are completely worth it. I would do everything all over again, exactly the same if it means that I get to be with you.” Maybe I had made my drink just a touch _too_ strong. The confessions were rolling off my tongue a little too freely.

Luckily he seemed to be caught up in another detail of the things I had said.

“There was a seven year difference in your ages?” He was silent for a moment and I knew what his next question would be before he even opened his mouth. “He and I are the same age?”

“Yes.”

“Does that not bother you?”

I shook my head, setting my cup down on the table. “No. For one, I’m not fifteen anymore. Two, I actually, you know, like you. Romantically. Sexually. As a person. Does it bother you?”

Uncertainty danced in his eyes. “You don’t feel as if I’m taking advantage of you?”

“Of course not. Cullen, I’m here because I want to be here. I’m not letting myself make the same stupid mistakes. I’m done making those mistakes. Well, for the most part.” I frowned, thoughts drifting back to my two-week long lapse in judgment with Professor Solas.

He picked up on my meaning immediately. “Did you want to talk about what happened with your professor?”

“There isn’t much to talk about, really.” I shrugged. “He just so happened to be the first person I told about what happened at the Divine Conclave. He saw how sick it made me, and he expressed concern for my well-being. Then he told me that he had feelings for me. We kissed a handful of times and me being the idiot that I am, I slept with him. It only happened once. Because after that he straight up ignored me for an entire week. At which point you punched him in right in his stupid face.”

He looked as if the final piece of a puzzle had clicked into place. “So the bruising on your neck—“

“Oh...Yeah. The bruise was a by-product of _that_.” I tucked my hair behind my ear and brought my knees up to my chest. “Turns out he was just using me. It was sort of my fault for not defining the parameters of our relationship _before_ I let him put his dick in me. Not that I even know exactly what I was hoping to find being with him. At least I ended things before they went too far. I hate to spring yet another one of my insecurities on you but…what is _this_?” I gestured between us. Talking about my ex made me feel vulnerable, and more than a little sick to my stomach. “What does our future look like?”

My question had clearly caught him off guard. Again. Apparently I was getting very good at that. “Oh—”

“I’m not talking about marriage, or kids, or a white picket fence. I just…I need to know that this isn’t only about sex—mind-blowing as it may be. I need to know that it means something to you…that _I_ mean something to you.”

“You do. Of course you do.” He insisted, both his hands gripping both of mine. “If I’ve said or done anything to make you think otherwise—“

I stared down at our entwined hands. “No, no! I’m just…it’s something that…I always feel like I’m… _not enough_. Like I’ve never _been enough_.”

“You are enough. I promise. I never want you to feel like you aren’t. I—” He ran a hand over his face, gathering his thoughts. “Before we started sleeping together, I told you that I didn’t just want you for an afternoon. I meant those words. I am in this for as long as you’ll have me.”

I reached for my glass, but it was empty. So I grabbed his instead.

“I don’t think—“ He started.

“What? Scared of my cooties? I hate to break it to you, Cullen, but we’ve swapped enough bodily fluids that you’ve already got them.” I took a swig and immediately let out a cough. “Is that straight whisky? How can you drink that straight? Oh, Creators. That was fucking awful.”

Amusement tugged at his lips. “Years of practice.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Ugh. Why though? That definitely isn’t as smooth as elven baby butt. You should get your money back.”

“I happen to like it. Need I remind you that next to wine, your drink of choice is basically rubbing alcohol with carbonated sugar water? At least whisky has flavor.”

“If you consider old man sweat and cigarettes a flavor, sure.” I grumbled.

He let out a laugh. “Shall I get you something less offensive to your taste buds?”

“Water, please. If you wouldn’t mind.”

He got up with a small nod.

When he returned, his hand lingered as he handed me the glass. “I...can only hope that I won’t fail you as the other men in your life have.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. You’re already leaps and bounds ahead of any other man that I’ve had in my life.”

I could do this.

Cullen made me happy.

I could be happy.

I was _allowed_ to be happy.

 

Midterms were right around the corner, so Monday night meant the start of my study group.

I settled in at a table in the campus library with a few other students from my Police Psychology class.

As I sat with my fellow students discussing the interventions used to treat PTSD, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched.

Which was ridiculous.

The library was heavily populated.

There were people sitting on every available surface trying to cram for their exams.

I was getting anxious over nothing.

Half an hour into the study session, my phone began to ring.

Cullen. A big dopey grin spread across my face. I looked at the group apologetically. “Sorry, I have to take this.”

“Why?” Cullen lamented in lieu of proper greeting when I answered the phone.

“Hello to you too, lover boy.” I leaned against a bookshelf, grin still in place.

“Hello, Renna, my darling, my moon and my stars. Now, why?”

“I’m definitely into the pet names, but you’ll have to be slightly more specific than that. You could be referring to any number of things. For example, I left a pair of panties under your pillow the last time I was over.”

“Really?” His tone turned immediately bright, and I could hear the excitement in his voice. “I didn’t—no. I’ll not be distracted. Varric. And Cassandra.”

“Oh. That.” I waved my hand dismissively, even though I knew he couldn’t see me.

“Cassandra just informed me—while blushing like a school girl, might I add—that the two of them are going out on a date, so I repeat, why? What possible reason could you have for allowing this to happen?”

“They’re going on a date? Like a real date? When?” My voice had risen louder than was strictly appropriate for a library. I threw an apologetic look at the people actively ‘shush’ing me and made my way toward the doors to the street.

“Yes, a real date.” His tone was brimming with exasperation. “Tomorrow evening.”

The cool night air hit me, making me wish that I had thought to bring my jacket. My hoodie was barely thick enough to keep the evening chill at bay. I wandered away from the door. “Seriously?”

“Yes. Why would I jest about something as severe as this?”

“You’re being overly dramatic. We have to crash their date! It’ll either be a magnificent disaster, or they’ll get married and have a million kids. Hopefully they’ll have her looks and his temperament and not the other way around, or those would be some hairy, angry children.” I ignored his obvious distress, focusing instead on the sound of footsteps coming closer to me.

“I would rather not witness any of those outcomes. The two of them are insufferable. He’s been by the station a few times since they met for coffee. Their flirting is rather…uncomfortable to witness. So, what do you have to say for yourself?”

I spun around and the person who belonged to the footsteps shouldered past me on his way to the parking lot.

No one was following me.

No one was after me.

I was being ridiculous.

I let the tension fall from my shoulders.

“Well?” He prompted after too long of a silence.

“Hmm? What was that?”

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

I thought for another moment. “I am very flexible, and I don’t have a gag reflex.”

“Maker’s breath.” A surprised laugh escaped his lips. “While both of those statements are very true—and very distracting, might I add—they are irrelevant in this line of questioning.”

“Oooo, I love it when you talk all ‘detective’ to me. It gets me all hot and bothered.”

“Your clever tongue won’t get you out of this one I’m afraid.”

“Are you sure, Detective? A well placed tongue can do wonders.”

He let out a low chuckle. “You are incorrigible.”

I felt heat pool low in my stomach. “And you like it.”

“Yes, I do. Very much. How are your studies going?”

“Oh, you know, studiously.” I didn’t mention my fictional stalker, because I didn’t want to worry him. I had sensitive hearing and an overactive imagination, a horrible combination, really.

“Would you like me to pick you up when you’re finished?”

“If I say no, you’re going to come get me anyway, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Then we’ll just skip straight over that unnecessary bit of conversation. Pick me up around 7:00?”

“All right. Then, perhaps you can show me the wonders of a well-placed tongue?”

“I believe I’ve already done that. I _suppose_ that I wouldn’t be opposed to giving you another demonstration.”

“I look forward to it. But, for now I should let you go. I’ve interrupted your studies enough for one evening.”

I sighed dramatically. “Fiiiiiine.”

“Until later, Renna.”

Of course the mature thing to do was call Varric and harass him.

So that was exactly what I did the moment I hung up.

Varric had only loved two women. That I knew about anyway. For someone who wrote absolutely filthy ‘romance’ novels—porn—for a living, he was particularly tight lipped with regards to his own love life, he only began waxing poetic about it when he was exceptionally hammered.

Both women had ended up with other men.

Bianca, his high school sweetheart had left him for a man that her parents had picked out for her. For that reason, he had never shared his feelings with his second love, Hawke. Hawke had ended up with a mutual friend of theirs, a man nicknamed ‘Broody’.

Varric dealt almost exclusively in nicknames when it came to his close personal friends. And acquaintances. And people he met on the street. It was rare that he used someone’s real name. Not that it really mattered, because although I had heard some stories about his friends and the good old days, I had never met any of them.

Varric picked up on the third ring. “Poppy? Now this is a surprise.”

“Oh, Varric. It really shouldn’t be, you know. I hear you’re going on a _real_ date with Detective Pentaghast. Who owes who now?” I began to pace the narrow walkway, getting further from the library doors than was probably advisable.

“We’ll call it even, Poppy.” Varric replied dryly.

“If it works out, we should totally go on a double date.”

“Hilarious. What are you, sixteen?”

“Closer to it than you are, old man.” I replied glibly. “If you get past third base, you could also name one of your children after me. That would also be acceptable repayment.”

“Who says we haven’t?”

“Varric, you slut.” I teased with a gasp of mock shock.

“Now, now, I never said whether we did or didn’t. A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

I snorted. “You literally just implied—“

There it was again.

Footsteps.

These were different.

Softer.

More deliberate.

I stopped.

They stopped.

I lowered my voice. “Varric, I’m going to have to call you back. I think I’m being followed.”

“Are you serious? Wait, Renna don’t—“

I hung up, ignoring both his use of my real name and his immediate attempt to call me back.

I turned around, ready to throw a punch if need be.

But there was no one there.

I was jumping at nothing.

Despite the entire week separating me from the events that had happened at the warehouse, apparently I was still a little on edge.

I sighed, turning to reenter the building.

Something struck the back of my head and my whole world went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I write a line and I think to myself, ‘Wow, that is a wildly overdramatic way to phrase that sentence’ and then I think, ‘That’s it. That’s Renna.' She’s a drama queen who jumps to conclusions like she’s bouncing on a fucking trampoline. There is an embarrassing amount of me in her character, haha.
> 
> Side note, ‘Varric, you slut’ is probably my favorite line that I’ve ever written, to be honest. Out of context it’s just so wonderfully absurd, not that in context is any better really. Pretty sure that man has never been called a slut (till now).
> 
> When I started editing this chapter, I thought it would be nice and straightforward, not a lot of things that needed tweaking…oh boy was I wrong, haha. The next one needs a loooot of work as well, so it may be a little longer than the standard (approximate) week between chapters…that being said, I might end up surprising myself and actually getting it done in a timely manner.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	21. Taken

Things shifted in and out of focus.

I must have been drugged. Or hit particularly hard on the back of the head if the pounding ache radiating out from the base of my skull was anything to go by.

My left arm felt funny.

All weird tingles and—

I looked down.

My veins were glowing green.

Not just a subtle green that could be attributed to the incredibly poor lighting in the room.

No, it was a bright radioactive green, emanating from deep within my skin.

So, I had been hit on the head _and_ drugged.

Fantastic.

I was lying on my side on some sort of thin foam mattress. I pulled myself into a sitting position, the sudden movement making my head spin further. The movement also directed my attention to the fact that my wrists were shackled in narrow iron bands, a short chain connecting them to an iron ring that was protruding from the cement floor.

I rubbed at my eyes, trying to clear the cobwebs from my brain.

I was still wearing the clothes I had been wearing at the library minus the hoodie, but other than that everything appeared to be intact which was a small blessing.

The room was unbearably warm. And also weirdly dark considering the fairly decent night vision my elven heritage granted. But I could make out vague shapes that looked like some sort of shelving.

I got an immediate and unwelcome picture in my head of the storeroom at the Divine Conclave, and I was filled with a rather large amount of panic.

Oh, Creators.

I was going to fucking die here.

Just like Divine Justinia.

My breath came in short pants.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I was hyperventilating.

I needed to calm the fuck down.

I needed to think about this rationally.

Freaking out wouldn’t solve anything.

Panicking would only get me killed.

I forced myself to take a deep breath and focus on the details of the room.

What little light permeated the darkness revealed the shelves to be positioned slightly differently than the ones at the Divine Conclave.

I wasn’t back there.

I let out the breath that I hadn’t even realized I was holding.

The relief only lasted a fraction of a second before it was replaced by a new clawing sense of anxiety.

I had no idea where I was.

I had no idea who had taken me.

Did it have something to do with the Fade guy?

I was panicking again.

I needed to stop fucking panicking.

Fuck my head was fuzzy.

I tried to take stock of the things I did know.

My watch was missing from my manacled wrist, so I had absolutely zero idea how much time had passed.

I had been followed at—and taken from—the library.

And—

I had no fucking clue what had happened after that.

I had been on the phone with Varric and—

Varric would have told Detective Pentaghast about our phone call.

And she would have told Cullen.

And Cullen would come for me.

I knew he would.

He had made a promise to keep me safe.

Sure, that was an entirely different situation with an entirely different maniac, but I had to believe that the promise still stood.

I just had to be patient.

Cullen was on his way.

Cullen was coming for me.

He had to be.

The alternative was too bleak to even consider.

The shelves were lined with boxes, for all I knew, the key to my salvation was contained within their cardboard walls.

It didn’t matter though; none of them were close enough to be reached by my too short limbs.

The only thing that _was_ within my reach was a bucket placed against the far wall of the room, and I didn’t particularly want to think about the implications of that.

For the moment I appeared to be alone.

I needed to test how true that statement was.

“Hello?” I croaked.

“Miss Lavellan.”

I knew that voice, but I wasn’t anything less than absolutely stunned to hear it in that dark room. “Pr—Professor Solas?”

“Just Solas will be fine. You are no longer my student after all.” He stepped forward, the hard planes of his face lit up in an eerie glow cast by the green flame that danced on his outstretched hand. He was wearing a black suit with a black shirt, an untied black tie draped around his neck.

Why was he dressed in the same sort of ‘uniform’ that Corypheus and Samson had been wearing the last two times I had seen them?

And what the fuck was that weird green flame?

“What—“ I blinked hard and looked again. There was nothing there. His hand was empty. The room was dark.

“Did you see it?”

My brain was still trying to process the blip in reality. “I don’t—“

He crouched down in front of me, placing his hand under my chin. “Did you see the veilfire?”

I nodded mutely. I didn’t know what veilfire was. But it seemed like as good a name as any for what I had seen.

“Excellent. Then it is working.”

Questions danced around my head, threatening to spill out of my mouth all at once. “What’s working? What the fuck is going on? Who the actual fuck are you?”

“All of your questions will be answered in due time, but first we need to open your mind to the possibility of _more_.”

“ _More_?” I repeated incredulously.

He nodded, eyes strangely intense.

“And how are _we_ going to do that?”

“With the Fade.”

“The Fade…?” I took a moment to process that. “You drugged me?”

He had dosed me with the Fade?

Did I feel like I was high on mind-altering drugs?

Actually, yeah, kind of.

I was seeing imaginary flames, and weird radioactive sludge pumping through my veins.

And suddenly I was rather unbothered by the current situation.

Detached.

But still oddly present.

Was I disassociating because of the stress of the current situation?

Or was that just the effect of the Fade?

I didn’t know anything about the Fade beyond the snippets I had heard from Samson and the Police.

And I sincerely doubted that I would be able to focus for long enough to compile a coherent list of symptoms for comparison.

He regarded me evenly. “I would not classify it as drugging.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.” My tone was incredulous, bordering on hysterical, even though inside I felt eerily calm. “I’ve been given the Fade. And you won’t tell me who you really are. Or why I’m here.”

“For the moment, that is correct.”

“Then what happens now?”

“Now, it is time for your next dose.” He took my left arm at the wrist and produced a capped syringe from his inside jacket pocket.

No.

No.

No.

I tried to pull my arm away.

His grip tightened to near bruising. “Struggling will only make this endeavor increasingly unpleasant for you.”

“Why are you doing this?” I felt the blood drain from my face as he uncapped the syringe with his teeth. My fear of needles was chipping away at the drug-induced calm. I didn’t do well with needles in the best of situations, and that was definitely not the best of situations.

He spat the cap delicately onto the floor, eyeing my arm carefully. “Has anyone ever told you that you have beautiful veins?”

“That really doesn’t answer my fucking question.” The words came out as a bit of a squeak. I felt like I was going to pass out.

He sighed positioning the needle directly above my skin. “I told you, I am working on opening your mind. The process is lengthy, but I promise you that the connection to the Fade is worth it.”

“Won’t this kill me? Don’t people die from taking this?” I tried not to panic. Why would he go through the trouble of kidnapping me if he was just going to kill me with mind-altering drugs of questionable stability? It didn’t make sense. Then again, absolutely fucking nothing about this entire Creators damned mess made any sense.

He sighed somewhat dramatically. “Those addicts—utter imbeciles, really—always start the dosage out too high. You have to ease into it. Or it _will_ kill you.”

“Why are you doing this?” I repeated, my voice little more than a horrified whisper. I let out a small hiss as the needle entered my arm. I stared with a feeling of rising horror as the swirling green liquid entered my bloodstream. It was like watching a car crash. I couldn’t look away, no matter how sick it made me feel.

“I have to give you a modest dose of the Fade every hour to build up your tolerance.” He explained patiently.

I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth against the urge to pass out. If I passed out, I was weak. And I certainly didn’t want to appear weak in the presence of my kidnapper.

An oddly pleasant numbness radiated out from the injection site, followed immediately by sickening wave of coldness, then scorching heat, burning me alive from the inside out.

The three sensations twisted together, each battling for dominance.

The heat won out, and I whimpered as it consumed me.

He continued on, oblivious to the fire liquefying my internal organs. “I have never seen another student take to our history the way you have. Tell me, you are Dalish, are you not?”

If I didn’t know any better, I would have said that he was trying to distract me. I nodded numbly, my voice lost for the moment, swallowed by flames.

“And yet you do not bear the vallaslin.”

I looked down at the syringe protruding from my arm warily, an intense wave of nausea and panic washing over me once again, briefly overpowering the feeling of the Fade diffusing through my system. I was freezing again, so cold that my teeth chattered. “H-h-hate n-n-n-n-needles.”

“I was not aware of your distaste for needles. I apologize.” He actually had the decency to look apologetic.

“Killing…me.” My tongue felt a hundred times too large for my mouth, swelling up until I was certain I would choke on it.

“I understand that what you’re going through is unpleasant, but a few needles will not kill you.”

“S’not needles I’m worried ‘bout,” I slurred, nodding to the syringe. “S’poison.”

“It’s not poison if it is used correctly. This is the fastest way to introduce the Fade into your bloodstream. I do not trust that you would be able to keep an IV in place in your condition. So, while I do regret repeatedly putting you through something that you find so disagreeable, it _is_ necessary to your integration with the Fade.” He carefully removed the needle from my arm, and stood, brushing imaginary dust from his immaculately clean pants. “I shall return in an hour. If you need to relieve yourself, there is a bucket in the corner.”

So my guess about the bucket had been correct then. Ugh.

He paused by the shelving, looking back at me over his shoulder. “Fair warning, when you sleep, the demons _will_ come. You must stay strong.”

My eyes weighed a million tons. A fog filled my brain, making everything hazy. Distorted. Had I heard him right? “Demons?”

“Yes. Demons.” He left without another word, leaving me to ponder what exactly he had meant.

 

_I open my eyes._

_It takes a moment for me to recognize my surroundings._

_I’m in the storage room at the Divine Conclave._

_At least, I think I am._

_Everything is tinted in an odd greenish hue._

_I look up into a swirling green sky._

_I look back down, directly in front of me._

_Shelves upon shelves upon shelves stretch impossibly far into the distance._

_I’m sitting in a chair._

_Hands grip my shoulders._

_Imprisoning me against my seat._

_Bruising my skin._

_This chair is familiar._

_It’s the one that Justinia was murdered in._

_Her blood still slicks the seat._

_Warm and wet, seeping through my clothes._

_I look over my shoulder._

_Samson’s pock marked, sallow face stares back at me._

_His eyes frighteningly unfocused, jaw slack._

_His grip tightens further._

_My gaze shifts back in front of me, and I freeze, terror-stricken._

_Corypheus is standing before me._

_His mask is gone._

_The skin of his face is melted._

_His teeth are fully visible through several holes in his cheek._

_His skin continues to shift and melt as I gape up at him._

_His eyes are missing._

_Scratch marks above and below suggest that someone has gouged them out._

_There’s a small hole in the center of his forehead._

_I wonder why, then I remember that that’s where Cullen shot him._

_He cocks his head as if he’s examining me._

_I feel his eyeless stare in the depths of my soul._

_The movement forces a trickle of brain matter from the hole in his head._

_Maggots wriggle loose from his eyeholes._

_I want to vomit._

_A scream bubbles in my throat, but I’m unable to let it go._

_I try to force myself to wriggle free of Samson’s grasp but I can’t._

_I’m immobilized by fear._

_All I can do is stare helplessly up into the now empty hollows of Corypheus’ eyes._

_I’m held captive by the grotesque wrongness of him._

_His stretching, twisted body towers above me, impossibly tall._

_Samson’s grip shifts lower on my left arm._

_His hold is firm just below my elbow._

_Corypheus brings his arm back._

_He lets the blade fall in a dramatic arc towards me._

_I feel it plunge into my arm._

 

A bloodcurdling scream echoed through the room, and it took me a moment to realize that it was coming from me.

Solas was holding my arm firmly in place against the ground, a half emptied syringe sticking from it. He seemed completely unbothered by my screaming. “I presumed that it might be kinder to let you sleep, given your aversion to needles.”

I had passed out in a ball on the cold hard floor next to my ‘bed’.

I slowly uncurled my tension-stiffened limbs—being careful not to jostle the arm with the fucking needle sticking from it. I ran my uncompromised hand over my face, staring up at the ceiling. Small green flames danced around the edges of my vision. “For future reference, waking up with a needle sticking out of my arm is most definitely not ‘kinder’.”

“What did you see?” His eyes shone with curiosity.

“I don’t remember.” I lied. I had no plans to be honest with him, when he hadn’t been even remotely honest with me.

“I see.” He frowned thoughtfully. “You should be able to remember everything that you’ve seen in vivid detail. It would appear that your connection to the Fade is tenuous at best.”

I snorted. “Since I’m such a disappointment, maybe you should just let me go.”

He ignored me and let out a low hum as he mused to himself. “Perhaps I should increase the frequency of the dosing? Smaller doses at shorter intervals? I don’t want to shock your system into complete rejection.”

Shorter intervals meant more needles. I felt myself pale. “What happens if I completely reject the Fade?”

“You’ll die.” He replied simply, the small frown lingering on his lips. “You would not be the first to do so. It is unfortunate, but no other has taken to the Fade quite as I have.”

 

_Samson shoves me to the cold hard floor of the warehouse._

_He delivers a kick to my ribs and one to my head for good measure._

_I’m certain that my ribs are broken._

_I don’t see Corypheus cross the room._

_He moves quick as a shadow, slithering up from the darkness that surrounds me._

_He grasps my arm and pulls._

_Yanking me thirty feet into the air._

_I hear the crack of my arm dislocating more than I feel it._

_The agonizing tearing sensation comes a moment later._

_Did it hurt this badly the last time my arm was dislocated?_

_I couldn’t remember._

_That was ten years ago._

_Corypheus levels his blood-encrusted dagger at my throat._

_Shallow cuts slice into my skin,_

_Nowhere near deep enough to kill me and end this._

_Just enough to sting._

_Just enough to distract from my broken bones._

_Just enough to distract from my wheezing breaths._

_His cuts move lower, slicing through my clothes._

_There’s a crash in the hallway._

_Cullen._

_Hope filters through me at the thought._

_He’s come for me._

_He’s going to save me._

_Just like last time._

_Just like—_

_My eyes widen in surprise as the knife slices through my skin a final time._

_I try to press my hand to my throat to stem the flow of blood._

_It’s useless._

_A gurgle escapes my lips._

_Blood drips down my chin._

_Slow at first._

_Then in an unstoppable torrent._

_I cough, and it’s the last sound I make._

 

The cough followed me into the waking world, quickly turning into dry heaving.

I barely made it to the bucket before I started throwing up.

Luckily I had yet to use it for its intended purpose, so I didn’t have to worry about back splash.

I relived my last meal.

Lunch on Monday.

However long ago _that_ had been.

I spat into the bucket a final time, wishing desperately for the chance to brush my teeth.

My gaze shifted down to my arm

I still only had three injection marks.

I hadn’t missed any this time.

Three injections.

Something nagged at me through the drug haze.

What was it that Solas originally said?

One dose every hour to build up my tolerance.

I was an idiot.

A Creator’s damned idiot.

I could use the marks to track time.

Why hadn’t I thought of it sooner?

Three injections.

That meant I had been there at least two hours, assuming that the initial dose was administered as soon as he brought me there. If he had given me the first dose when he initially kidnapped me, then I had been there for just under two hours, depending on travel time between the school and this hellish nightmare cell.

Of course it was nearly impossible to tell how much time had _actually_ passed since the initial dose, or when the initial dose was _actually_ administered, but at least it gave me a rough estimate.

Not that the rough estimate was good news by any stretch of the imagination.

It had been at least two hours since I had been taken.

I needed to get out.

There was only so much physical fighting I could do, shackled as I was.

But I had to try.

I would not die here.

I would have to use my wits to escape.

When they weren’t bogged down by drugs.

 

The next time he came in, I forced myself to look at the syringe.

He had halved the dose.

Had he halved the time between doses as well?

Was he coming in every half hour instead of every hour?

As the needle bit into my skin, I looked at him.

_Really_ looked at him for the first time since I had first set foot in his classroom, beyond his handsome exterior.

He was witty and charming, but that was clearly a façade.

He had absolutely no regard for the rights and feelings of others, despite his affected polite interest in my well-being.

He had become aggressive when Cullen found us kissing.

Sure he had been able to keep it reined in, but I had seen it simmering beneath the surface.

He wanted to inflict pain.

He _had_ inflicted pain when he fucked me.

It wasn’t entirely fair to count that as a transgression though, because I _had_ wanted it.

He had several markers for anti-social personality disorder.

But I couldn’t exactly diagnose him.

I didn’t know a fucking thing about him.

I didn’t know who he really was.

Or why he had taken me.

Seven fucking years of school and all I could come up with was ‘charming’ and ‘lack of morals’ and ‘aggressive’.

I had spent _years_ learning how to analyze people.

And it was like I was reading symptoms off of a stupid online list.

I wasn’t sure if it was the drugs, or just my complete and utter inability to actually utilize my training.

Maybe when I was higher than a fucking kite wasn’t the best time to try testing my psychoanalysis skills, but I still couldn’t help but be disappointed in myself.

 

Other than coming in to give me each new dose, I didn’t see Solas. He barely stayed to chat beyond seeing how I was reacting to the drugs coursing through my veins, making notes in a small notebook he carried with him. Even though he wasn’t present with me in the room, I was still convinced that he was watching. He had to be.

I was almost certain that I had been in his clutches for a few days, but he hadn’t offered any food or water. Oddly enough, I wasn’t hungry or thirsty. I assumed that it had something to do with the Fade.

Though I might not have been thirsty, I would have liked some water, but that was more to rinse the taste of vomit from my mouth than anything else.

Being kept in a state of perpetual high was mentally taxing.

Physically however, I seemed to be building up some sort of tolerance to the Fade.

It took longer for the physical effects to take hold.

My fingers shook less and my blood neither scorched, nor froze in my veins. The only original symptom that lingered was the now pleasant numbness.

I enjoyed that numbness more than I reasonably should have.

In place of the original symptoms, I had a new slightly alarming set instead.

I began to itch and tingle.

I could feel it on my skin when the time for another dose drew near.

I began to crave it.

I needed to get the fuck out before the craving turned to obsession.

Before it consumed me.

As Solas observed me—both from within the room and from afar, as I had to assume that he was monitoring me when he wasn’t directly in my line of sight—I tried to formulate an escape plan.

I knew from watching crime dramas with Sera that there was a slim window where kidnapping victims were more likely to be found.

My arm was starting to look like a damned pincushion.

If the steadily increasing amount of puncture marks was anything to go by, I would be approaching the end of that window sooner rather than later.

What would happen to me if I did?

I needed to get out before his little experiment killed me. I was certain that the only way there was even a miniscule chance for me to get away with something was if he was in the same room as me but not able to actively observe me.

It didn’t take me long to come up with a brilliant plan.

I just needed to put it in motion before he dosed me again.

Before I lost myself again.

“Hey, Solas!” I called into the darkness.

A moment later I heard him approach. He was no longer wearing the suit, having exchanged it for an overly familiar beige sweater.

“What is it?” His sharp gaze traveled over my prone form quickly. “Is something the matter?”

“I need to pee.”

“As I stated earlier, there is a bucket for that express purpose.” He gestured toward it just in case I had forgotten its location.

“So, not only are you going to force me to piss in a bucket like some sort of prisoner, but you’re also going to watch me do it? I can’t go with you standing there!”

He sighed. “I’ll turn around, but that’s all the privacy I will give.”

“Fine.”

He turned.

“Cover your ears too! This is so fucking degrading.” I grumbled, secretly thrilled that my little plan had worked.

It wouldn’t totally block out the sound of my shuffling, if his ears were anywhere near as sensitive as mine, but at the very least it would muffle things.

The bucket was surprisingly empty.

He must have cleaned it out the last time I had fallen unconscious.

I shuffled my pants down around my ankles, the motion less than graceful thanks to the hindrance of the manacles. I squatted over the Creators damned bucket. As I braced myself against the wall with one arm, I discreetly slipped two bobby pins from the hair at the nape of my neck. I tucked them down the front of my bra for safekeeping. I had absolutely no idea how to pick a lock, but that couldn’t stop me from trying.

I somehow managed to actually pee in the bucket with him as an audience.

My shackles rattled against my piss bucket as I pulled up my pants. “When will you let me go? When can I get out of these chains?”

“That is entirely up to you.”

I arched a disbelieving eyebrow. “Meaning?”

“It depends on how long it takes you to accept the Fade.”

I would never accept the Fade.

I would never allow it to become a part of me.

I would never stop fighting it.

Never stop fighting him.

I didn’t say any of that.

Instead I said, “Cullen is going to find me.”

He turned to face me. “I would not count on that. I assure you that we are very well hidden here.”

“Cullen will come for me.”

“While I appreciate your faith in him, how can you be so sure? Humans only care for one thing: others of there own kind.”

“You’re wrong. Cullen isn’t like that.”

“Do you honestly believe that your detective could love you? He can’t. For centuries we have been nothing to them. Less than nothing. We’ve been treated no better than pets. You know that better than most. If anyone in this room should hold a grudge against humans, it is you. You’re nothing more than a novelty to him. And once the novelty wears off, where will that leave you? Lying broken and beaten half to death in some dark alley, left for dead.”

I felt my blood run cold. That was precisely how my last relationship had ended. There was no way that was just a lucky guess. “How—“

“You are very tempting, but you did not think that I would bed you without first looking into your past, did you?” He asked nonchalantly. “I have a reputation and an empire to uphold.”

“Cullen isn’t like _him_.” I insisted, mostly to convince myself.

“Then why is he not here? Why has he not come for you?”

“Stop it. Stop it!”

“You met him three weeks ago. How well have you _actually_ come to know him?”

“I said, stop it!” I snarled, lunging as far towards him as the chains would allow. Of course, I came up short. I seemed to be doing that a lot.

He raised an eyebrow, and I could feel him silently judging me. “An abusive ex boyfriend. A father who ran off before you were born. A mother who couldn’t be bothered to raise you. Guardians who didn’t seem to care whether you lived or died. You don’t owe this world a thing. So why are you resisting the Fade?”

I stared down at my fingers. “Because I don’t want this. No one in their right mind would want this.”

“You will see that I am right. You will embrace this by the time I’m through.”

Before he left, he administered another dose.

Another hole pierced in my skin.

Another marker bringing me closer to the end.

I needed to get out of these chains.

I needed to escape.

I wasn’t sure where he was watching from, so my best bet was to completely hide my ‘misdeeds’ from view. I curled over into myself, keeping my arms shielded underneath my body.

I wouldn’t have long before—

My fingers fumbled and I felt the welcome tingle of the Fade working its way through my system. I tried to re-hide the bobby pin but my fingers had disconnected from my brain.

I was pulled under before I got the chance to try out my daring escape plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun DUUUUUN! 
> 
> There it is, the plot twist I’m fairly certain could be spotted coming from outer space as soon as Solas was introduced.
> 
> The shift from past tense to present tense was because I wanted the transition from waking to dreaming to be sort of jarring. Hopefully it achieved that effect, cause it was hella jarring to write/edit, haha.
> 
> I’ve been working on heavily editing this chapter and the next chapter (technically next two chapters) simultaneously to try to make sure it all sort of makes sense. Which is a big reason for the delay. I also added to two chapters to the final chapter count, because that will give me enough time to wrap things up the way I want to.
> 
> Thanks for being patient with me while I get my shit sorted, and thanks for reading!


	22. Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning for a descriptive portrayal of past rape. If you’re not comfortable reading that sort of thing, skip down past the italicized text to ‘ **I shot up from my bed and scrambled back against the wall...** ’

_A strike lands on my shoulder._

_I’m knocked to the ground._

_My hands barely break my fall._

_A kick to my side forces me the rest of the way down._

_My ribs scream in protest._

_A weight settles over me._

_I’m pinned face down to the ground._

_My cheek pressed to the cold, wet, rough pavement._

_It scrapes my skin._

_Leaving marks I won’t have to explain._

_Because no one cares._

_I can’t move._

_I can’t breathe._

_I feel him fumbling behind me._

_Dampness settles on my lashes._

_I bite my lip to stifle a whimper._

_He doesn’t it like it when I cry._

_When he’s like this, he wants silence._

_And he’ll break more bones if he doesn’t get it._

_Impatient hands tear my pants down my legs._

_A frustrated grunt when he can’t force my legs open far enough._

_The weight leaves._

_I’m shoved onto my back._

_Knees forced up and apart._

_I stare into his eyes._

_Pleading silently._

_Praying that he'll stop._

_But that wouldn’t be any fun._

_Taking is fun._

_It’s all a game to him._

_He likes when he can take._

_He likes my fear._

_Likes the taste of it._

_He thrives on it._

_Gets off on it._

_His eyes are cold._

_Crazed._

_The darkest blue._

_Almost black._

_All I can see in the darkened alley._

_Leaning up on one elbow, he positions himself._

_A press, unwelcome and hot between my legs._

_He begins to thrust._

_His hand settles on my neck._

_Crushing._

_We’ve done this dance before._

_I can’t fight back._

_I have to stay perfectly still._

_I can’t breathe._

_He’s going to kill me this time._

_It’s almost a relief._

_“You belong to me.” Whispered, growled against my ear._

_His pace grows frenzied._

_Manic._

_I’m pulled into the welcome embrace of unthinking darkness._

 

I shot up from my bed and scrambled back against the wall, clutching at my head as if that would make the memories disappear.

Tearing, clawing, I raked my nails down my arms, trying to anchor myself in reality.

I wasn’t back there.

That was nine fucking years ago.

 _He_ didn’t know where I was.

 _He_ couldn’t hurt me anymore.

Feelings bubbled to the surface.

Feelings that I had pushed deep down inside for so long.

Feelings that I had never dealt with—had never wanted to deal with.

I was pissed.

I was terrified.

But most of all, I felt the keen loss of my innocence.

Innocence that had been stolen from me.

Taken forcefully.

Repeatedly.

Made worse by the interspersion of the façade that _he_ had actual feelings for me.

 _He_ hadn’t forced himself on me every time.

Sometimes _he_ had pretended that I had a choice.

Pretended to care for me.

Pretended to love me.

I was the only girl _he_ had _actually_ _loved_.

 _He_ was the best version of himself when we were together.

I made him a _better person_.

 _He_ needed me.

And that was why I couldn’t leave.

_He needed me._

And that was a heady rush for someone that no one else needed.

 _He_ had owned me.

Totally.

Completely.

There was nothing romantic about it.

I was a pet.

His plaything.

 _He_ didn’t even see me as a person.

I was nothing to him.

Less than nothing.

And _he_ was devastatingly everything to me.

 _He_ had plied me with lies and false love and _he_ had _always come back_.

And that was more than could be said for my father.

 _He_ had loved me in his own special way.

And that was more than could be said for my remaining family.

I was young and naïve and I didn’t know what a functional relationship was supposed to look like.

I thought what _he_ had done to me was normal.

I thought that being treated the way _he_ had treated me was just the way _he_ showed his love.

 _He_ might have hurt me.

 _He_ might have done irreparable damage to me.

 _He_ might have been fucked up.

But so was I.

And that was why I had been so completely and thoroughly trapped.

_I was fucked up._

“Stop.” The command in the voice did nothing to halt my nails shredding my skin. “Renna, calm down. You’re hurting yourself. You are all right. Everything is going to be all right.” A hand covered mine, gripping tight, halting my self-harm. Fingers gently grazed my cheek, a feather light caress that trailed down my jaw to my exposed collarbone.

I closed my eyes, taking an odd sort of comfort in the touch, imagining Cullen’s more calloused fingers in their place.

My eyes snapped open as I remembered exactly where I was and who I was with.

“You don’t know that!” I spat, trying unsuccessfully to jerk out of his grasp. “Everything is so fucking far from all right!”

Steel settled in Solas’ blue gaze. “Tell me what you saw.”

I glared up at him. “Go fuck yourself, you sadistic piece of shit.”

He was irritatingly calm. “In order for our relationship to work, you need to be honest with me.”

“You want fucking honesty?” I shouted hysterically. “We don’t have a relationship! You fucked me once, and now what? You’re obsessed with me? You kidnapped me. You’re _killing me slowly_.”

“Hush.” He replied patiently. “You are behaving like a child.”

His composure was seriously getting on my nerves.

“Don’t you fucking ‘hush’ me!”

“I know that you’re angry. And I know that you’re frightened. The Fade will intensify those feelings. The fight will leave you soon enough.”

“If that was meant to be comforting, it wasn’t.” I growled in response.

I drew my head back and cracked it sharply against his.

Satisfaction filled me as a trickle of blood slid out from the corner of his mouth.

It was worth the ache in my head to know that I had been able to cause some bodily harm.

I grinned up at him, certain that I looked feral, and not caring one bit.

He stood and spat at the ground, his face an impenetrable mask.

 

There were twelve tiny red dots spanning the space between my wrist and the crook of my elbow.

Did that mean something?

I felt like it should mean something.

No amount of focus I could muster could _make it_ mean something.

I shook my head, trying to clear it.

Trying to force coherent thoughts into the space where there hadn’t been any for who the fuck knew how long.

A dull cascade of bright red filled the sides of my vision.

My hair hung loose around my shoulders.

Fuck.

He had taken all of my bobby pins.

Why was that important again?

Right.

That’s how I was going to escape.

I was going to…

Going to do something.

I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was.

Right.

Something about trying to escape.

I needed to come up with a plan to escape.

I had bobby pins in my hair.

I could use them to pick the locks on my shackles.

Wait.

No.

That wouldn’t work.

My bobby pins were gone.

Solas had taken them.

I would have to come up with another plan.

I would have to try _something_.

I couldn’t just accept my fate.

I couldn’t let Solas win.

I needed to get back to…

Cullen.

I needed to get back to Cullen.

Cullen.

 

_The sun is warm on my face._

_How long has it been since I felt its warmth?_

_Too long._

_Too fucking long._

_I bask in the glow for a moment, eyes closed._

_Unwilling to shatter the moment of peace._

_My eyes crack open slowly._

_Sunlight streams into the room through the skylight above the bed._

_Cullen’s bed._

_I'm in Cullen's room._

_Everything is bright._

_Everything is warm._

_I turn my head and I’m met with an achingly familiar sight._

_Golden hair._

_Honey colored eyes._

_A small scar on his lip._

_He watches me curiously._

_“Were you dreaming?” He asks._

_Tears roll down my cheeks._

_I nod._

_Of course._

_A dream._

_I hadn’t been taken._

_“It was all just a horrible dream.”_

_I’m safe._

_I’m safe in Cullen’s bed._

_Where I belong._

_I’ve never been more relieved._

_I reach for him, but I’m stopped short._

_Caught up in the shackles imprisoning my wrists._

_It takes my brain a moment to process._

_Then I begin thrashing._

_Trying to free myself. "No. No!"_

_The sunlight drains from the room._

_The warmth and brightness replaced by shadowed swirling green._

_He shakes his head, eyes dancing with cruel laughter._

_What—_

_“You actually believed that I would come for you?”_

_No._

_His grin is all pointed teeth. “What a ridiculous notion.”_

_No. Cullen wouldn’t say that._

_He lifts his hand to touch my cheek. “Nobody wants you, Renna.”_

_He wouldn’t._

_His fingers move down my neck. “Nobody’s coming for you.”_

_He promised to keep me safe._

_“How could anyone love such a broken thing like you?”_

_Cullen._

_He leans closer, licking a tear from my cheek. “You’re not worth it.”_

 

I stared blankly at the wall, just letting the tears roll down my face.

I felt numb, and it had very little to do with the drugs pounding through my veins.

I should have been safe there.

I should have been safe with Cullen.

And Solas took that away from me.

I couldn’t even find the energy to be mad at him.

The Fade Cullen was right.

I _was_ broken.

Nobody was coming for me.

Nobody wanted me.

Not my family.

Not my ex.

It would only have been a matter of time before Cullen realized that he didn’t want me either.

Nobody wanted me.

Maybe this whole thing was a blessing in disguise.

Maybe _this_ would kill me before the loneliness could.

“Renna?” Solas’ cautious voice cut through the silence.

I continued my staring contest with the wall, the will to move long gone from my system.

“How are you feeling?”

I gave a sort of half shrug, unenthusiastic about the prospect of an actual conversation. What I really wanted was to be left alone to wallow.

His hand settled on the back of my neck, stroking absently at my hair. “You’ve been fighting this every step of the way. What was it that finally broke you?”

I was so fucking drained that I couldn’t even find the energy to push him away, let alone the energy to sit up. “You’re right. No one is coming for me. Who would want to?”

“Ah. So you’ve given in to your perceived bleakness of the situation.”

“I suppose so.” It appeared that he was in a chatty mood. I figured I should probably capitalize on it, even though talking was the last thing that I wanted to do. “You told me to be honest with you. And now I’ve been honest. What about _you_ being honest with me? Who are you really?”

“I suppose that you are ready for the truth. I am Fen’Harel. I am the Dread Wolf.”

“Fen’Harel?” I said slowly, churning the word over my tongue. My mind was as fuzzy as my mouth, distorting things that I should have had no problems recalling. “The Dalish god of betrayal?”

“The Dalish god of _rebellion_ ,” he corrected, I could hear the barest hint of a smile in his voice.

“So…you’re a Dalish god?” I asked, head lolling to the side so that I could look up at him.

I sure knew how to pick ‘em.

At least my ex hadn’t had delusions of fucking godhood.

He nodded, gaze calculating as he gauged my reaction.

“That’s—that’s not possible.”

Wasn’t it though?

I had seen evidence of magic.

His fucking veilfire. Still, a rational part of me said that it was completely ludicrous. “You teach history.”

“ _Ancient Elvhen_ history.” He corrected, as if the distinction was important.

I supposed that it _was_.

He was able to speak of Ancient Elvhen things as if he were there.

Was it because some deluded, drugged out part of him had been convinced that he was?

Or was it possible that he _actually_ had been?

No.

I couldn’t believe in magic.

I was a student of psychology.

A scientist.

A firm believer in facts.

And I didn’t believe in magic.

Did I?

His gaze shifted from calculating to slightly amused. “I can see you working through it in your mind. I can see the cogs turning. I don’t blame you for not believing me. I didn’t always remember who I am. I was like you. A muted version of myself. I trudged through life. Asleep to who I really am. Then I was awoken from my slumber.”

A chill went down my spine. “What woke you from your slumber?”

“I was working for a pharmaceutical company with… _questionable_ morals. I was the lead chemist of the group responsible for creating the Fade. The first iteration was tested on a rather unfortunate group of prisoners. It drove them mad. I believe the riot that ensued made international news. The effects of the Fade can be truly horrifying when it is placed within the grasp of the unworthy. The Fade was introduced into my own bloodstream during an accident in my lab. From there, I saw its true potential, as well as my own. I was shown who I used to be. Who I am to become. What I need to do to right my past wrongs. It is my duty to restore the Elven people to our former glory. We used to rule this world. Magic ran through our very veins. And then in a deluded attempt to divert power from those who abused it, I sealed away the Creators and in doing so, severed our ties to magic.”

This seemed almost…plausible.

That had to be the drugs in my own system, right?

Why else would I find truth in this…this utter nonsense?

He continued. “Despite having a general distaste for the Dalish, I had always been intrigued by their legends. And I finally knew the reason.”

My brain scrabbled to keep its grip on reality. “That’s all they are. Legends.”

“Do you not believe in your own gods?”

“Everyone _believes_ something. That doesn’t make it real.”

“Am I not real to you?” Amusement danced behind his eyes.

“Honestly? I haven’t decided. This all seems like a horrible dream. Maybe my bastard ex put me in a coma the last time he beat me half to death. That would explain all of this.” I let out a fractured laugh. It was so absurd that it could only be true. “A coma dream.”

He shook his head, slight disappointment radiating off of him. “This is not some coma induced dream, Renna. This is reality.”

“Oh. Well that’s rather unfortunate.” My laughter died, turning to resigned acceptance.

"I had hoped that you would be strong enough to withstand the effects of the Fade. But you seem to cracking under the pressure of my gift."

“Gift?" If I had the energy, I would have snorted derisively. "Why did you pick me to share this ‘gift’? Why am _I_ so special?”

“I was drawn first by your beauty, and second by your intelligence. I have journeyed through the Fade and no one has been able to draw my attention like you.”

This time I did snort. I wasn’t special to him. He had said as much when I left him that day in his office. “And what about the other women?”

“There were no others. I lied to you.”

“Why?”

“To manipulate you into staying. A miscalculation on my part. Given your history I assumed that treating you poorly would make you stay.”

That was quite a fucking thing to admit, it ignited some of the fight that I had thought was lost for good. “Are you fucking serious?”

He nodded solemnly. “My actions were…regrettable. I apologize for treating you the way that I did.”

I scowled, allowing myself to feel something other than self-pity. “So, it was all some scheme to get into my pants?”

His eyes flashed. “Nothing so crass. You were…not originally a consideration in my plans. Under normal circumstances I never would have engaged with you at all, romantic entanglements prove to be quite... _messy_. But fate brought us together. I never would have imagined that you would be the girl who Corypheus and Samson saw fleeing the scene of Justinia’s murder. Their ineptitude sent you straight into my arms. It wasn’t difficult to see your feelings for me. It wasn’t difficult to manipulate them, either. I just wish that you had been a better listener. Things might have turned out very different. You could have come here of your own free will. You could have joined me as an equal from the beginning.”

“So, once you found out that I was the girl from the Divine Conclave, taking me prisoner _became_ a part of your grand scheme?”

“You are not a prisoner.”

“Pretty sure I am.” I lifted my wrist lamely, rattling my chains for emphasis, before letting it drop heavily back to the mattress.

“You will be free in more ways than one once you accept the Fade.”

“And if I die before that happens? I distinctly remember you stating that as a possibility.”

“It would be unfortunate, but that is truly out of my hands now. Your willingness to survive is the only factor of any importance.”

My willingness to survive.

Did I have that anymore?

It was tough to say.

Sure, I had found a tiny spark of fight with his admissions of douchebaggery, but…fighting just took so much energy.

And I wasn’t sure if I had the mental capacity to keep it up.

I sighed heavily. “Why all the mind games?”

He frowned. “None of this has _ever_ been a game.”

“You just admitted to manipulating me. Twice.” I pointed out.

"That doesn't make this a game."

“Agree to disagree. Who’s to say things wouldn’t have been different if you had just _told me the truth_?”

His brow arched skeptically. “I am to believe that you would have fallen over yourself to be with me if I had told you my true identity?”

“We’ll never know now, will we?”

“No. I suppose not.”

This was the longest he had left me lucid since he started dosing me. Suspicion crept through me. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

“Because it is incredibly unlikely that you will remember.”

“Ah. You’re about to dose me again. Aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Get on with it then.” My skin was itchy and I was done. I didn’t want to hear anything else. I wanted to sink into nothingness.

“Tell me, are you a part of the Inquisition as well?” He asked, voice deceptively conversational as he slipped a syringe from his pocket.

The question was way out of left field. And probably meant to catch me off guard. It was probably within my best interest to pretend I knew nothing. It wasn’t very far from the truth. “The what? What’s that?”

“Don’t play the fool with me. I know better, and foolishness is a rather unbecoming look on you.”

“I’m not—“

“For someone who knows nothing of them, they certainly appear to be very interested in you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Your roommate is a member. Do you continue to deny any knowledge of their existence?”

“How did you know about—“ Realization dawned. “It was _you_. The school has her listed as my emergency contact.” That’s how Corypheus knew that Sera could be used to get to me. Solas had gone through my file and found her name.

Sera.

She loved me.

Unconditionally.

She had been putting up with my shit for two decades.

She was the single bright spot in my miserable existence.

The needle slid into my arm.

And I slid into blissful oblivion.

 

_“Ren.”_

_It was so bright._

_I couldn’t make my eyelids open._

_I just wanted to lie there._

_I didn’t want to deal with anything._

_I was done._

_Totally and completely done._

_“Yer lettin’ him win.”_

_That voice was so familiar._

_Sera?_

_I forced my eyes open a crack._

_The overpowering glow was emanating from Sera’s slight form._

_Was she there to save me?_

_She had saved me before._

_From an entirely different monster._

_Was it too much to hope that she would save me again?_

_A frustrated snort. “Ya gotta fight, Ren.”_

_I can’t do it._

_I can’t fight it anymore._

_“He deserves to win if yer gonna give up this easy.”_

_She was right._

_He deserves to win._

 

All semblance of the passage of time ceased. Everything seemed to come to a complete halt while simultaneously speeding up out of control.

I couldn’t say how long I had been shackled to his floor.

The injection marks on my arm all blurred together.

Making it impossible to use them to mark the passage of time.

And there was nothing I could do to free myself.

How many days—

Or had it been weeks?

How long had I been locked up in his room of horrors?

I was in hell.

Absolute hell.

One set of thoughts pounded through my head, repeating infinitely:

He deserved to win.

No one was coming for me.

I wasn’t worth saving.

_He deserved to win._

_No one was coming for me._

_I wasn’t worth saving._

**_He deserved to win._ **

**_No one was coming for me._ **

**_I wasn’t worth saving._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one might seem a little repetitive or disjointed in places…but that's because, you know, drugs of the mind-altering variety are bad and they fuck with your brain.
> 
> Honestly, I am a huge Solas fangirl, even if it might not seem like it based on this chapter. I know this wasn’t the most flattering portrayal of Solas…but this is how the bugger ended up writing himself, haha.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	23. Found

I just wanted to float in the dreamless void that was my new home.

It was where I lived now.

It wasn’t my happy place.

Far from it.

But it was the closest to happy that I would ever get again.

I was at peace.

Everything had finally settled into a bearable numbness.

No nightmares.

No Solas.

No crushing disappointment at my lack of rescue.

No reality.

As long as I kept my eyes closed, I could just _be_.

And it was wonderful.

I felt weightless.

I was _free_.

For the first time ever.

Nothing was demanded of me.

I was like a house cat.

No responsibilities.

Content.

Warm.

Not safe though.

Never safe again.

But that was okay.

_Because I was at peace_.

Giving up was so much easier than fighting.

Why hadn’t I just given up a long time ago?

Why hadn't I—

Sudden loudness fractured the calm, and with it my little slice of peace was stolen from me.

Solas was shouting.

The sound of other voices mingled with his.

Something explosively percussive mixed with the deafening cacophony of speech.

I opened my eyes.

Bright light flashed before my vision, nearly blinding in the too dark room.

Flames?

Fireworks?

Gunfire?

The world around me sparkled weirdly, shimmers of green hanging in the air.

It was tough to say what was real and what wasn’t.

It was all too much.

Too vividly real.

I just wanted to return to my nothingness.

My sweet, sweet oblivion.

I let my eyes slide shut, doing my best to block out the unwelcome intrusion on my small slice of serenity.

There was a rush of movement around me, but I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes again.

My eyelids were so, so heavy.

And I was just so, so tired.

“Oi, we need a medic!” Was that Sera?

A brief touch against my neck. A different voice. “She’s breathing. She has a pulse.”

“We have to get her out of these cuffs.” Another voice. Someone fiddling with my handcuffs.

“Is there a key?”

“Shove off! I’ll get her out.” That definitely sounded like Sera.

Besides Sera, I counted at least two separate and unfamiliar voices, but I couldn’t be sure without opening my eyes.

I felt the shackles fall from my wrists, their familiar weight disappearing to the ground with a clanking thud.

A small familiar hand grasped my shoulder.

Warmth and comfort seeped into me.

Was that _actually_ Sera?

Was she actually there?

“Has anyone seen Detective Rutherford?”

The meaning of their words rolled off me like water off a ducks back.

Nothing sticking, nothing being comprehended by my drug-addled mind.

I thought I had heard Cullen’s name in the garbled mess of words, but that didn’t make any sense.

He wasn’t coming for me.

No one was coming for me.

Sera wasn’t here.

There was no one here.

It was all a figment of my imagination.

There was no daring rescue.

I was alone.

And soon, I would wake up.

A brand new layer of torture added to the pile.

“Over here, Detective Rutherford! We’ve got her!”

“Renna! Thank the Maker.” The voice was certainly familiar; the face hovering above mine was much less so.

“Cullen?” I asked, voice sounding hoarse and alien to even my own ears.

He slid in and out of focus, features blurring together until he was simply a blob of flesh tone and blond. He could have been anyone, really. I felt someone grab my Fade marked arm and let out a hiss at the entirely unpleasant sensation. Fingers continued to prod at the tender flesh, making me squirm in discomfort.

“Renna, just focus on me please, okay?” Cullen’s voice urged. “Ignore the medics. I’m here, stay with me, please. It’s going to be okay. Trust me. You are going to be okay.”

“How can I trust you? You’re not real.” I let my head flop uselessly to the side. A hazy sleeve settled into my line of vision, another blonde blob attached to it. I could have sworn that the second blonde blob was Sera. But she hadn't said another word.

“Renna.” His voice took on a slightly panicked tone. “I’m real. I’m real, and I’m here.”

“You’re…real?” I turned back to face him. “You promise?” I raised my hand and it passed right through where I thought his face would be.

I was almost certain that I was awake, that I hadn’t slid back into unconsciousness, despite all of my efforts to the contrary.

That meant I had progressed to more tangible hallucinations.

Of course.

That was the next logical step, right?

And ‘I’m real’ is exactly the sort of thing a hallucination would say.

I started to let my hand fall.

Warmth encircled it before it hit the floor.

That felt real.

I forced my eyes open again.

Calloused fingers squeezed against mine reassuringly before my hand was brought to rest against a stubble-covered cheek.

That felt real _and_ familiar.

A kiss was pressed against my palm.

If I concentrated particularly hard, I could force his face into focus. His hair was a disheveled mess. His brow was furrowed with worry. His lips were pressed together in a thin line. Despite his haggard appearance, he was still the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

“Cullen.” It took some effort to make my facial muscles cooperate with my brain, but I felt my face twist into something that felt like a smile. “You’re here. I didn't think you were coming.”

“I promise that I will always come for you, Renna.”

“That's quite a thing to promise.” I mused to myself. I seemed to have a knack for getting into trouble.

He didn’t reply, tired eyes raking over my face, taking it in as if he was afraid it might be the last time he saw me.

I loved him.

So I needed to tell him.

I needed to force the words out of my mouth.

Because he needed to hear them, even if he could never reciprocate.

If imposing my confession of love on him was selfish, then I was selfish.

“I’m so stupid, Cullen. I love you. Even if you'll never love me back.”

A startled look crossed his features. “I—“

“Detective Rutherford, I’m sorry to interrupt, but you need to take a look at this.”

Cullen turned toward the disembodied voice, expression going grim.

“It’s severely infected. It needs to be removed. Now.”

“That’s—we can’t make that decision for her while she’s completely out of her mind on the Fade!”

“There isn’t any time to wait, if we catch it now before it spreads any further, Miss Lavellan may still have a chance at survival.”

I giggled, my moment of partial clarity totally and completely shattered, giving way to drug induced cheerfulness. “That sounds rather grim. Sucks to be Miss Lavellan.”

Wait.

Was I Miss Lavellan?

I was pretty sure I was Miss Lavellan.

Fuck.

I felt a needle pierce the skin of my right arm, and let out another manic giggle. “What the shit? Needles go in the left arm, silly. That’s where all the drugs go.”

“It’s all right, Renna.” Cullen soothed, hand going a little tighter around mine. Warm lips brushed against my temple. “You’ve just been given a sedative. You will be all right.”

“I sure fucking hope I'll be all right.” My words slurred together as I lost control of my tongue.

Wouldn't those have been perfect last words?

A fitting epitaph for my future tombstone.

 

I slipped in and out of consciousness.

I couldn’t move.

I wanted to move.

I didn’t want to move.

I had no control over my body.

I was floating again.

Fragments of murmured conversation settled around me.

Voices intermingling and weaving together into a blanket of tentative comfort.

The voices were warm.

Familiar.

Concerned.

I wanted to open my eyes.

I wanted to see my friends for what might possibly be the final time.

But my eyelids were far too heavy.

Everything was far too heavy.

I was dragged down and down and down into a blackness that I didn’t think I would ever wake from.

And I was strangely at peace.

If this was the end for me, then it was oddly freeing.

The voices settled into the two that I loved the most in the entire world.

Cullen. “When we found her—why didn’t you—you could have said—“

Sera. “She needed to see _you_. Hear _you_. I can’t be the only one that she can count on in her life, Detective hotpants. I dunno how much she told ya ‘bout her ex, but he let her down. Hard. And he wasn’t the first one to do it. Her dad left. Then her mom. And her grandparents…they were just plain arseholes. Not one redeemin’ quality between the two of ‘em. She’d never say anythin’ cause she doesn’t wanna be a burden, but she needs more people in her life. Ones that’ll fight _for_ her, ‘stead of against her. She deserves happiness. And I think maybe ya could _be_ that happiness. If yer willin’ to try. I can tell by lookin' at ya that ya've been through some shite. And ya've come out the other side more or less intact, far as I can tell. She’s got shite of her own to work out, but I think maybe ya could help her. It won’t be easy…but I promise she's worth it. Yer good for her. She just sorta lights up when she’s with ya. And I really hope ya plan on stickin’ around. Cause she might not admit it, but she needs ya. And I need her. If ya don’t think ya can handle her, then ya best piss off now. No sense in gettin’ her hopes up 'bout a 'happily ever after' if yer just gonna smash her heart to pieces.”

“I don't plan on going anywhere.”

“Good.”

“I’ve told her as much too. But I’m not sure that she believes me.”

“Yer gonna hafta be patient with her. She’s not used to people stickin’ around.”

The voices gave way to nothingness.

 

I awoke with one arm draped across my stomach, and the other tethered to an IV.

My bed was uncomfortable.

Stiff.

I felt like I hadn’t moved in months.

A dull intermittent beep filled the room.

My eyelids still felt like they weighed a million tons.

I managed to force them open.

My surroundings were bright white and sterile.

A hospital?

Was this a hospital?

Had I really been saved?

Or was this just another game?

Another manipulation?

If I closed my eyes for longer than a standard blink, would the bright white of the hospital room disappear for good and be traded for the dreary darkness of my prison?

I pinched my arm to ground myself.

At least, I tried to pinch my arm.

My right hand sank straight through where I felt my left arm resting against my stomach.

What the—

I lifted my left arm, praying to any god who would listen that what I feared wasn’t actually true.

“No.” The word came out as a horrified breath, the fingers of my right hand resting against my trembling lip as I stared down at my left arm.

I tried to make a fist.

I tried to clench muscles that no longer existed.

My left hand was gone.

My left forearm was gone.

My left elbow was gone.

They had been taken from me.

A bandaged stump was all that remained, peeking out from the sleeve of my hospital gown.

I was no longer whole.

I was finally as broken on the outside as I was on the inside.

A tear slid down my cheek.

Then another.

Should I have been in pain?

I didn't feel anything.

I was physically numb.

“Did ya seriously wait til the exact second ya were alone to wake up?” Sera’s voice called.

My head lifted off the pillow, jerking towards the door.

Sera was standing there.

She was wearing one of my school sweaters. Her clothes looked rumpled, as if she had spent the night sleeping curled in a ball.

She looked affectionately exasperated.

Her expression turned alarmed the moment she realized there were tears on my cheeks. She crossed the room quickly, bypassing the lone chair to settle on the bed next to my hip, quickly adjusting the incline of the bed so that I was in a more upright position. “Shite. Are ya okay? Are ya in pain? Do ya need stronger meds?”

“Sera?” I sounded lost. Terrified.

“Yeah, Ren?”

I didn’t want to ask, but I needed to know. “Is this real?”

Her brow furrowed with worry. “Course it is. Does it not feel real?”

I thought for a moment, trying to expand my senses outward. Still nothing. Not a damn thing. A small sob escaped my lips. “It doesn’t _feel_ like anything.”

“It’s real.” Her hand settled over mine, squeezing firmly as her fingers snaked through mine, granting me the first tiny tingle of realness. The fingers of her other hand brushed my matted hair away from my cheek. “Yer safe, Ren. I promise.”

I looked around the room again, eyes finally settling on Sera’s concerned face. Something wasn’t right. I closed my eyes and dropped my head back against my pillow as I realized exactly what it was. “This can’t be real.”

“Why not?”

I cracked an eye open. “You’re in a hospital.”

Sera didn’t set foot in hospitals.

Three months before we had left for Haven, her foster mother had fallen ill.

In a matter of days she had gone from healthy to dead.

Though they had a complicated relationship, it was still hard on Sera seeing the closest thing she had to a mother have her health so utterly and rapidly deteriorate.

She had vowed that she would never spend another second in a hospital unless she was chained to a bed.

It had been seven years. And she had never broken that promise.

I sighed.

How long would it be before I actually woke up?

Would my arm still be gone when I did?

Or was that just part of the nightmare too?

She shook her head. “ _Yer_ in a hospital, ya tit. That’s why _I’m_ here. Yer well being trumps any hang ups I’ve got.”

“You’re really here then? You really came for me?” Even I could hear the pathetic hope in my voice.

“Course I did, Ren.”

I allowed myself to believe her. For now. And a crushing sense of guilt enveloped me. “I am such a fucking asshole, Sera. You saved me from _you know who_ and I didn’t even—I should have trusted that you would come for me again.”

She gave a little half shrug. “Wasn’t just me. Was sorta a team effort.”

I shook my head. “When Cullen didn’t immediately bust down the door, I didn’t think anyone was coming. But we’ve been best friends for twenty fucking years. I should have known that you were coming for me. I shouldn’t have doubted you. You’ve always been there for me, no matter what. And I feel so guilty that I didn’t—fuck. Can you forgive me?”

“Course I can, Ren. There’s nothing to forgive. Cullen wanted to go in guns blazin’ soon as we found ya. We all did. But we couldn’t.”

I had another question that I was scared to have answered. I stared down at our entwined fingers. “How long? How long did Solas have me?”

“We woulda got in sooner, but the bald-headed bugger had goons guardin’ the place. We had to be smart. Didn’t wanna spook him into hurtin’ ya.”

"How long, Sera?"

"Little over eight hours."

“No,” I shook my head slowly as her words started to sink in. “That can’t be right…the injection marks…he said he was dosing me every hour. Then he increased the frequency and—my arm was absolutely covered. I looked like a fucking pincushion.”

“Is it possible he lied to ya about how much he was givin’? They said that the Fade mighta fucked with yer perception of time.”

That was an understatement. “It felt like I was there for weeks.”

Time had stretched on and on and on.

But something about my time with Solas hadn't added up.

I hadn’t eaten the entire time I was there.

I had only peed once.

I felt so stupid.

That _motherfucker_.

It was just another layer of manipulation.

“Tell me what happened.” I said quietly.

“Wot do ya remember?”

“I was taken from school, given drugs. I had some hallucinations. I had some awful fucking nightmares. Then I vaguely remember you and Cullen saving me.”

“That about sums it up.”

“And what happened to my arm?”

She hesitated briefly as her gaze slid down my left shoulder. “It was infected. They had to…get rid of it. It woulda killed ya if they didn’t.”

I didn't have anything to say to that.

I was more fixated on how long I had  _actually_ been gone for.

Eight hours.

Eight fucking hours.

I had given up all hope in a third of a day.

I had been broken.

What did that say about me?

That I was weak.

So fucking weak.

“I saw things, Sera." The quiet words escaped my lips unbidden. "Horrible twisted things spliced with actual memories. Things that I told myself I had forgotten. I saw you. I saw Cullen…I saw _him_. I relived some of the things _he_ did to me.”

“Oh, Ren.” Her grip tightened around my hand.

A man I didn’t recognize entered the room, a clipboard in his hand, eyes downcast as he interrupted our private conversation. He looked up briefly, then did a double take. A friendly smile settled on his bland, non-descript face. “Ah, Miss Lavellan. I see that you’re awake. I’m Dr. Smith, I’m in charge of your recovery. How are you feeling?”

“Like I had my arm chopped off while I was unconscious after being high on mind-altering drugs for eight hours. How long have I been here?” I could have asked Sera, but I figured since he was there, I might as well ask him.

He gave a nervous little laugh. “Seventy-two hours.”

“Three days?”

He nodded.

I frowned. “And I’m just waking up now?”

“I’m not sure how much you recall of your…” he paused awkwardly, “…captivity, but you were given copious amounts of a drug called ‘the Fade’. Your body reacted poorly to it. Due to the repeated injections and your adverse reaction to the substance itself—your arm couldn’t be saved. A field amputation was necessary to ensure your best chance at survival. We placed you in a medically induced coma to save you from the worst of the withdrawal symptoms. We also gave you something to speed up the detoxifying process.”

“Will there be any lingering side effects?” I didn’t think that I could deal with it if I was stuck with a lifetime of reliving my worst memories. Would I crave the Fade like I had when I was with Solas? 

"The amputation went very smoothly—"

"I meant side effects from the Fade."

“I…honestly don’t know.” He shuffled through the stack of papers in his hands, avoiding eye contact. “I’m afraid I don’t have any answers for you. You're a rather unique case. People who take the Fade…they don’t usually seek out medical attention. The mortality rate is far too high and the drug hasn’t been around for long enough to do comprehensive studies.”

Solas had said that the company he worked for had been testing the Fade on prisoners. Could Kinloch have been ground zero? If so that meant that the Fade had been around a decade at the very least. “That’s what you think.”

“Pardon?”

“Nevermind. My arm is gone. And no one has any clue what will happen to me next?”

He hesitated before nodding. “That is correct.”

“Fantastic.” I muttered.

He continued on, ignoring my sarcasm. “Depending on your energy levels in the next day or so, we’ll have you fit for a prosthetic arm, and begin physiotherapy. We’ll keep you in hospital for at least a week to monitor you and ensure that there are no complications from your amputation or your fast-tracked withdrawal from the Fade.”

A prosthetic arm?

Did I even want one of those?

Did I have a choice in the matter?

His voice interrupted my musing. “Did you have any further questions for me?”

“No. I think I’m good.”

“Well, if you need anything, a blanket, an extra pillow, more pain meds, just give the call button a press and one of our amazing nurses will be right with you.”

“Thanks, Doctor.” I wasn’t sure why I was thanking him. He hadn’t actually been all that helpful.

He nodded and turned to leave.

Sera stuck her tongue out at his retreating form, waiting until he was completely out of sight before speaking. “Bit of a tosser, eh?”

I snorted, staring out the open door. “His bedside manner could definitely use some work. And being told he doesn’t know what’s going to happen to me doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”

Approximately three seconds after Doctor Smith's sudden and cowardly departure, Cullen's tall frame filled the doorway.

He had a coffee cup in one hand and some sort of bright pink, sugary looking, whipped cream topped, disaster drink in the other. A bag hung off his wrist; he peered into it, more focused on its contents than Sera or I. “The coffee shop was woefully under stocked. No cinnamon buns, but they did have chocolate chip muffins. And they were out of chocolate sprinkles, so they added rainbow sprinkles to your drink instead. I hope that’s—“ His breath caught as he looked up and realized that I was conscious. Relief visibly spread through him, softening the tense set of his shoulders, easing some of the lines on his heartbreakingly handsome face. He looked like he was breathing easy for the first time in decades. “Renna.”

My heart fluttered at the sight of him. “Cullen.”

He crossed the room and passed Sera the cotton candy colored nightmare, and the presumably pastry filled bag.

He opened his mouth, and abruptly closed it as his eyes slid to Sera.

Sera’s gaze shifted between us. “I’ll give the two of ya a minute.”

I nodded my thanks, giving her hand one last squeeze before letting her go.

As Sera exited, suspicion about the realness of reality crept back in.

Telling me to keep my guard up.

I couldn’t trust that I was awake and safe.

As he took Sera’s recently vacated spot, I searched Cullen's face for any hint of the malicious glint that I had seen in him in while under the influence of the Fade.

All I could see was warm concern.

And that was worse.

That could chip away at me.

Make me feel.

Lull me into a false sense of security so he could pull the rug out from under me and leave me reeling.

I had to treat this like it was real.

Despite everything with Solas feeling like a nightmare that I would never be able to escape, it _had_ brought some clarity.

I couldn’t stay with Cullen.

I needed to end things.

Now.

Before I got in any deeper than I already was.

During my captivity—no matter how short lived it may have been—I had been so focused on someone coming to save me, that I hadn’t done enough to save myself.

I had convinced myself that he wouldn’t come for me.

That he would never come for me.

I had given up entirely on the thought of being saved.

It had crushed me.

I couldn’t live like this.

I couldn’t let him in.

I couldn’t depend on him.

I couldn’t depend on anyone.

I was in love with him.

And that didn't mean a damn fucking thing in the grand scheme of things.

He may have said that he could fall in love with me.

But those were much simpler times.

Happier times.

Words exchanged in a post-orgasm glow.

As far as I could tell, this was real life.

I was broken now.

In more ways than one.

He would feel responsible for me.

Because that's how he was.

He would want to take care of me.

And then he would grow to resent me.

Like anyone else who'd taken any sort of care of me in the past.

Then, when I was at my lowest, he would leave.

Because everyone left.

I had to leave him before he could leave me.

Before I got any more attached.

Drawing things out would only result in further heartbreak.

I felt an ache in my chest as I took him in.

Creators, he looked so tired.

Tired well beyond his thirty-one years.

Could I do this?

I had to do this.

“I can't apologize enough for not being here when you woke.” He reached for my hand, a tentative smile on his lips.

“It’s fine.” I pulled my hand onto my lap, not returning his smile. If I wanted to have any hope of surviving this, I needed to be distant. “Thank you for coming for me at all.”

There.

Cool.

Impersonal.

A little bitchy if I was being honest.

“Oh. You’re…welcome?” It came out as a question, as if he wasn’t sure how to respond to my aloofness. The smile slipped from his face. “Is this about—Do you remember what you said to me when we found you?”

I remembered very clearly. I had stupidly told him that I loved him. But I shook my head, hoping that it would deter him from asking about it.

“You said that you loved me, even if I will never love you back. Why did you say that?”

No such luck then. “It doesn’t matter.”

He shook his head. “Yes. It does. It matters a great deal. Despite what you might think Renna, I do lo—“

"No." I pressed shaking fingers to his lips, silencing him. “Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.”

“Why not?” His lips moved against my fingertips, his breath ghosting over my skin.

I worked hard at keeping my voice level and emotionless. “You can’t take it back once you say it. And I know you can’t mean it. You can never mean it.”

Confused hurt seeped into his expression, threatening to break my manufactured calm. His fingers encircled mine. “What are you talking about? Why do you think—”

I let my hand drop from his lips, balling it into a fist on my lap. I kept my eyes trained on it. I could feel the sting of tears burning. I had to do this now. Or I wouldn’t be strong enough. “I can’t be with you anymore.”

“Renna, don't—“

“I just—“ My voice broke. “We’re just—I can’t make you happy, Cullen. It doesn’t matter how much I want to. I just can’t. I will never be enough for you. And it’s better if we end this now. You deserve—you deserve someone that’s not me. I’m not worth loving. You can never love me. No one can.”

“Renna—“

I shook my head, the tears threatening to spill over. “I want you to leave. Please, Cullen. Don’t make this any harder than it already is.”

“Of course.” He nodded and stood with a dejected sigh before his hurt abruptly disappeared behind an emotionless mask.

Watching him shut down like that would have been fascinating from a psychology stand point, if I hadn't been the cause of it.

He left without a word and without so much as a backwards glance.

That shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did.

It felt like my insides were being pulled apart.

I gripped my left shoulder tightly, trying to keep my heart from spilling out of the metaphorical hole that had been left in my chest.

I let myself fall back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as I willed myself not to cry.

Of course, that just made the urge to cry that much stronger, until I was letting out a pathetic little whimper into the emptiness of the room.

I had only been alone for mere moments before Sera’s angry face appeared in my line of vision.

“Ren? What. Did. He. Do.” It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation.

“Nothing,” I sniffled. “He didn’t do anything. It was me. It’s always me.”

“Ren—“

A no nonsense knock sounded from the doorway, and Detective Pentaghast stepped into view. “I hope that I am not interrupting.”

I sat all the way up—with heavy assistance from Sera—not particularly caring how much of a Creator’s damned mess I was.

“Renna?” Detective Pentaghast hesitated at the door, her usually confident manner replaced by deep concern. “Are you all right?”

Her hesitation had me rethinking exactly how shitty I must have looked. I wiped hastily at my eyes. “Yeah. It’s…I’m fine. Just a side effect of—it’s not important. What can I do for you, Detective?”

“I can come back when you are feeling more lively.”

“No. I’m fine. What can I do for you, Detective?”

She hesitated again. “Solas wishes to speak with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She's safe, she's awake, and she's a damned mess.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	24. Chat

Sera was the first one to break the silence when it stretched on for slightly longer than could be considered comfortable. “Who gives a pissin’ shite what that waste of friggin’ breath wants?”

It took a moment for me to fully process Detective Pentaghast’s words.

Solas wanted to speak with me?

Why?

What could he possibly have to say to the girl he broke so thoroughly and completely?

Another thing nagged at me.

Why was Detective Pentaghast allowing this?

I wasn’t affiliated with the law in any way shape or form.

It felt like decades ago that she had told me as much in the front entryway of the safe house, but it didn’t make it any less true.

I ignored Sera’s very valid outburst and allowed my questions to bubble past my lips. “Me? Why? Have you forgotten that I’m not a member of the Police force?”

“No. I have not.” Detective Pentaghast’s expression soured slightly. “He has refused to speak with anyone else until he is allowed the chance to speak with you.”

“So...you need me?”

“Yes.” She bit out begrudgingly. “Your cooperation in this matter would be greatly appreciated.”

They needed me.

After my depressing Fade induced revelations regarding my general level of usefulness to _anyone_ , it was nice to be needed.

Despite that, I couldn’t help but feel like it was wrong to even be considering it.

I was a kidnapping victim.

I was recovering from an amputation.

“Is that even allowed?” I asked. “Shouldn’t I be on bed rest?”

“The trip to Solas’ room has already been cleared by your doctor. Do you think that you are up for it?” Her face softened a little, as if she just realized exactly how much she was asking of me. “We will find another way to make him talk if you are not.”

The chance to see him again.

Did I want that?

Yes.

I did.

Still, my stomach twisted at the thought of actually seeing him.

But it was something that I needed to do.

Fuck.

I bit the inside of my lip hard enough to draw blood. “I’ll do it.”

Sera’s grip on my arm tightened. “Ren, are ya sure ya—“

“Yes. I’m sure. I have questions and based on my talk with my _actual_ doctor, apparently Solas is the only one with any sort of answers.”

“Then I’m comin’ with ya.”

I looked to Detective Pentaghast and she nodded her assent.

A nurse was called in to unhook me from the monitoring equipment.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and tried to stand, but they quickly gave out under my weight.

Apparently I was a little on the weakened side after being unconscious for the better part of the last five days.

Sera caught me easily around the waist and wrapped me in a housecoat before helping me into a waiting wheelchair. She spent the entire time exchanging glares with the nurse, who kept quietly insisting that helping me was _her_ job not Sera’s.

I gripped my IV pole tightly, as much as I hated the needle in my hand, I could appreciate the fact that it was keeping me numb to the expected pain of having my arm removed, as well as the general pain of everything else that I had been through.

Following Detective Pentaghast, Sera wheeled me out of my room, down the hall, and into the waiting, officer flanked, service elevator. Her grip on the handles at my shoulders was tight, as if she were afraid that if she let me go even for a second that I would float away into nothingness.

I shared the irrational sentiment, happy to have her grounding presence at my back.

Before Detective Pentaghast could ask, Sera reached past me and pressed the button for the fourth floor.

Detective Pentaghast’s brow arched. “How did you—“

“He hurt my best friend.” Sera replied evenly. “I’m keepin’ _very_ close tabs on him.”

“You are not considering doing anything that might be considered rash, are you?”

“Course not. So long as you lot do yer jobs.”

“The Inquisition should not—“

“This's got nothing to with the Inquisition. It’s personal.”

Detective Pentaghast made a noncommittal unimpressed sort of noise before turning her attention to me. “I do apologize for springing this on you so soon after your waking. I know that there is…much for you to adjust to and—“

I sighed heavily. “Honestly, I’m really trying not to dwell on the things that I ‘need to adjust to’.”

The elevator doors opened onto a hallway crawling with Police officers.

Our presence was vigilantly observed.

At least a dozen uniformed eyes assessed us as we ventured forth from the elevator.

As reassuring as the overwhelming Police presence was, was it strictly necessary?

How dangerous did they think Solas was?

Was _I_ in danger?

Had I been too hasty in agreeing to see him?

Sera came to a stop in front of a door with two officers stationed on either side of it.

It was too late to turn back now.

Detective Pentaghast nodded authoritatively to the officers and opened the door.

Four more armed and extremely large men filed out of the room.

I was glad that they were taking his surveillance seriously, but at the same time, I had to wonder why they thought that a single elven man warranted so much muscle.

Without a word, Sera wheeled me into the room. Stopping a good five feet away from the bed.

I stared at a spot on the wall, wanting to prolong looking at him for as long as possible.

“Detective Pentaghast, what a lovely surprise. I was beginning to think that my requests were being purposefully ignored. Leave us.” His voice was calm and authoritative, as if he wasn’t the one in Police custody. It also sent chills through me.

Detective Pentaghast bristled at the command, her spine straightening and her jaw clenching. “That was not part of our deal.”

I looked up at her with what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’ll be fine.”

She frowned, gesturing for Sera to follow her.

Sera refused, firmly planting her feet as she took up permanent residence at my right side.

Detective Pentaghast made a frustrated noise throwing her hands up and leaving the room. I watched her retreating form.

Once the door was firmly closed, I finally allowed my gaze to settle on him.

Solas.

Fen’Harel.

The only man who might possibly have answers to what my future would hold.

He looked like much less of an imposing figure handcuffed to the bed as he was, his right leg in a cast. His arms were covered in small scratches, but they had already begun to heal.

He also had a black eye and a broken nose. Those were a much more recent development. The bruising was bright and fresh, and there was bloodied Kleenex hanging from his nostrils.

I waited for the usual wave of nausea to hit me at the sight of his blood.

It didn’t.

That was definitely strange.

But it was something that I could unpack and examine later.

The amount of injuries he had sustained made the sheer amount of officers watching him seem almost comical.

His chin rested in the palm of his uncuffed hand as he regarded me thoughtfully. His eyes slid to where Sera stood cross-armed and silently seething at my side. “I see that you’ve brought a friend who does not follow directions well. Sera, I presume?”

“Yer lucky I didn’t get to ya first, ya piece of shite.” She ground out.

He just smiled at her. “If you think you can manage to keep silent, you may stay. As an elf, you may find value in my words as well.”

She opened her mouth and I grabbed her wrist to keep her from doing or saying something stupid but justified.

As he studied her, I studied him.

A nagging sense of familiarity pulled at the edges of my awareness as I did.

_He had tied me up and dosed me with drugs, despite my pleading._

**Lack of empathy for others.**

_He thought he was a god._

**Self-perception of superiority.**

_He thought that he was responsible for returning elves to their ‘former glory’._

**Fixation on fantasies of power.**

_He always had to appear to be the smartest person in the room._

**Need for continual admiration from others.**

_He had just ordered Detective Pentaghast around like a servant._

**Sense of entitlement to obedience from others.**

**Narcissistic personality disorder.**

It was one possible diagnosis for the laundry list of traits that he presented with.

He also presented with traits of psychopathy.

**Superficially charming.**

**Devoid of guilt for his actions.**

**Casual and callous in his interpersonal relationships.**

Maybe I wasn’t as hopeless at this as I had initially thought.

He turned his knowing blue gaze on me, as if he could see all of my thoughts and insecurities in my face, a hint of a smile playing across his lips. “Miss Lavellan, it is truly wonderful to see you.”

With that single sentence, I was sucked into a place where the two of us were the only people who existed in the entire world.

My hand fell from Sera’s wrist.

I clenched my hand in my lap, trying to suppress the tremble that had started.

This man had seen me at my absolute lowest.

I couldn’t let him see how weak and broken I still was.

I couldn’t let him see how _destroyed_ I was.

Drawing upon a sense of strength that I didn’t actually possess, I spat the first biting thing that came to mind.

“You look like absolute and total shit.” I chose to hit his vanity because I couldn’t hit him anywhere else.

He gave me a once over that made my skin crawl. “I could say the same of you, but I wouldn’t be so crass.”

I bristled at the comment. “My appearance right now is entirely your fault.”

“How easy it is to blame others. It is not my fault that you were unable to withstand the Fade.” He examined the stumpy remains of my arm and gave a morose sigh. “I suppose ultimately I alone am able to bear its mark and survive intact.”

I snorted. “How very terrible for you.”

“How are you faring with the symptoms of the withdrawals?” Behind the mask of feigned concern there was a spark of curiosity.

“I’m not.”

His eyebrow raised in question. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been in a medically induced coma for the past three days.”

“Ah. Then I presume that is the reason they denied my previous requests to see you. They stopped you from living the experience, and prevented me from being able to accurately gauge the effects of the Fade on someone other than myself.”

I tried to cross my arms, but gave up after a few awkward shuffling motions. “What about the people you experimented on? Did they not provide enough data for your twisted bullshit?”

He nodded. “They were a decent baseline, yes. But you were a perfect specimen. Healthy, whole, no history of mental illness.”

That’s where he was wrong. Just because it wasn’t officially diagnosed, didn’t mean it wasn’t there. I had quietly struggled with depression and anxiety for most of my life. “My mental health has a bearing on my reaction?”

His gaze was calculating, stripping me down to nothing. “Everything has a bearing on your reaction. Age. Health. Dosage. Are you saying that your mental health is less than exemplary?”

“And what if I am?” I challenged.

“That would be very unfortunate for you.”

Well, fuck.

“What’s going to happen to me?” As much as I didn’t want to give him the upper hand, I couldn’t keep the question from quietly spilling out. No matter how disinterested and above his bullshit I wanted to seem, this had an impact on my future.

“A slow descent into madness?” He cocked his head to the side, pondering. “Or perhaps nothing. Who’s to say? It would depend on your level of…dysfunction.”

“Well, that’s not at all comforting.” I tugged my housecoat tighter against myself. “Aren’t you supposed to be an expert? Aren’t you supposed to have all the answers?”

“I am _the_ expert. No one can come close to rivaling my knowledge of the Fade.”

“But you don’t have the answers I’m looking for.”

“You were not forthcoming with the information on your mental health.”

I scoffed. “You’re blaming me? Are you fucking serious?”

“Extremely. You should have—”

“Don’t you fucking tell me what I should have done. It never crossed my mind to divulge it because it’s really none of your fucking business.”

“It _is_ my business,” he insisted calmly, “because it affects your reaction to the Fade.”

“When exactly was I supposed to tell you, hmm? When you fucked me and then ignored me for an entire week? When you disappeared from the campus? When you knocked me unconscious at the library? When you fucking kidnapped me? When you dosed me at your—wherever the fuck it was the you were keeping me? Are you my fucking doctor now? Should I also have told you about the time that I had the chickenpox when I was five? Or the three times that my left arm has been broken in the past ten years? Would that have affected where you dosed me? Would that have affected my ability to keep my fucking arm?” I was getting worked up. Angry. I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly through my nose. “Why the fuck am I here, Solas? What the fuck do you want from me?”

He regarded me calmly, as if my outburst were just a normal conversation. “I wanted to see how you were progressing with your body’s acceptance of the Fade, but it would appear that my curiosity will go unanswered for the time being.”

“Your curiosity will go unanswered forever,” I huffed. “You’re never getting a hold of me again you crazy piece of shit.”

“They might think I’m insane,” he mused, “but you know better than that. You’ve seen it. The magic.”

“All I saw were some drug induced hallucinations.” Unbidden, thoughts of my horrible dreams crept to the forefront of my mind.

_The snap of bones breaking._

_The press of his hand crushing my throat._

**_I am not there._ **

**_He can’t hurt me._ **

I forced myself to squash down the shiver of lingering fear tingling through my remaining limbs.

“You would dismiss it all so readily? It would appear that I was wrong about you. You aren’t at all like me. I was under the impression that you wanted more out of life. But, you’re content. Like an animal being fed for the slaughter.”

What I desperately wanted at that moment, more than anything in the world was to smack the smug right off of his face.

I had to restrain myself from brandishing my IV pole at him like a weapon. “You _decided_ that your way was best, fuck everyone else. What about the rest of the elves, what about your _supposed people_? Do we not get a say in what we want?”

He examined his nails disinterestedly. “I don’t see myself as having much in common with today’s elves.”

“Then why—“

“My purpose is to return things to the way that they were. If this world has to be sacrificed to do it, then so be it.” His gaze turned infuriatingly thoughtful. “Tell me, do you wish to remain a slave to the humans?”

The grip on my IV pole tightened. “I am not a slave! I am not some sad statistic. I am _doing something_ with my life. I—”

“I have given you a gift. I freed you.”

“A gift? You took away my freedom! You took away my choice! You _forced_ this on me. This isn’t something that I would _ever_ choose for myself. I have lost an arm, and potentially my sanity because of you!”

“I am hardly to blame for that. Were you really sane to begin with?”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing the tension to leave my body. “You know what? It doesn’t fucking matter.”

“Do not be thoughtless. You do not know what will become of you once you are freed from the shackles of their medications.”

I laughed harshly. “Neither do you!”

The ‘shackles of their medications’?

Fuck.

Were the pain meds the only thing keeping me from the nightmares?

He interrupted my frantic musing, “I could help you.”

“I think you’ve done more than enough to me,” I spat the words.

“And what of your Templar? Do you think he would readily watch your deterioration?”

Ice pounded through my veins. “He’s not mine. Not anymore.”

He smirked. Once upon a time I had found those lips charming. Now they were just condescending. “Does _he_ know that?”

“Yes. He does.”

“You think that he will give up on you?”

“He doesn’t have a choice in the matter.”

“I would not discount his willingness to keep you just yet.”

I was done with this. Done with him. “Cooperate with the Police. Or don’t. Your choice. Either way, you’re going to be in jail for a long ass time, separated from your precious Fade.”

My dramatic storm out was hindered somewhat by the fact that I couldn’t physically leave without assistance. My gaze shifted to Sera for the first time since Solas had started speaking. She was glaring over at him, looking absolutely livid. I touched her elbow gently and nodded towards the door.

She wheeled me out of the room, throwing one last glare over her shoulder.

On the other side of the door, Detective Pentaghast met my gaze with an odd look.

I sighed. “How much of that did you hear?”

“The entirety of it,” she said. “The room has been wired.”

“Of course it has.” I ran my hand over my face. Now the entire Haven Police department knew that I had fucked him. And that I had ‘less than exemplary’ mental health. Fantastic. “May I go back to my room now?”

“Of course. I will escort you.”

I nodded.

Sera didn’t speak again until we were back in my hospital room and I was settled back in my stiff bed.

She fluffed my pillow. “What a friggin’ prig.”

I winced as I tried to get comfortable. “No fucking kidding. Not sure what I ever saw in him.”

“Me neither. Will ya be okay if I run out for a bit? Need a change of clothes and a meal that doesn’t taste like cardboard marinated in a druffalo’s arsehole.”

I snorted a laugh. “Poetic. You have such a way with words. And yeah, go ahead. I’ll be fine. It’s not like he’s going to be able to sneak out and kidnap me all over again. He’d be pretty conspicuous hopping down the halls with his leg dragging behind him.”

“I know yer jokin’, but not funny. At all.”

“I will stay with her until you return.” Detective Pentaghast volunteered. “We have a few things that need to be discussed.” 

Sera left and then it was just Detective Pentaghast and I.

“What happened to Solas' nose?” I asked.

Detective Pentaghast let out a weary, long suffering sigh, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Detective Rutherford.”

It was sort of funny how she used his last name when she was exasperated with him.

Wait...Cullen had punched Solas?

“When? That bruising looked fresh. And he still had Kleenex jammed up his nostrils.”

“Approximately five minutes before I came to get you.”

I frowned. “That can’t be right. Cullen was still in my hospital room five minutes before you came to get me.”

She shook her head. “He informed me by text message that you had awoken, then asked to come by and pay Solas a visit. I walked in on him…delivering some _justice_. After Detective Rutherford was removed from the room, I came to collect you.”

I had been alone in my room for long enough that Cullen was able to have a conversation with Solas and punch the crap out of him.

Was my perception of time still skewed because of the Fade?

How long would that last for?

Was this my life now?

Would I be forever losing chunks of time?

And what had Solas said to Cullen to set him off?

Not that it was any of my business anymore.

Things were over between us.

It was for the best, really.

I just needed to _actually_ convince myself of that fact.

Instead of the myriad of other questions I had running through my mind, I asked, “And what happened to Solas’ leg?”

“He tried to escape custody by jumping out of a window.”

I snorted. “And that worked out well for him I see. I guess self proclaimed gods aren’t immune to fall damage either.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Did you just say ‘self-proclaimed gods’?”

“Oh, he didn’t tell you all about his ‘true identity’?”

“No. He has not been forthcoming with information of any kind.”

“Well, have I got a tale for you.”

I told her the story that Solas had spun for me.

How he had worked for a pharmaceutical company.

How they had tested what would one day become the Fade on prisoners.

How I suspected that the prisoners he had referred to may have been the ones at Kinloch Hold.

How he had been involved in a lab accident that opened his eyes to his ‘true identity’.

How he believed that magic was real.

How he thought he was a god.

Detective Pentaghast was silent, processing my words. “That is…not possible. He cannot be a god.”

“He would strongly beg to differ. He _was_ right about something though. He said that I would dream of demons, and I absolutely did do that.”

“Based on the limited research available, the Fade makes you highly susceptible to suggestion. He manipulated you by telling you of demons.”

That would make sense.

Corypheus and Samson were demonic.

My ex was the absolute epitome of evil.

And I had been thinking about Sera right before I had slipped into the dream where she tried to get me to fight.

What it didn’t explain was the veilfire.

I picked at the loose weave of the hospital provided blanket. “When I was awake I saw things…things that I can’t explain.”

“Green flames?” She asked.

My attention snapped up to her. “How did you—“

“While clearing out the room you were being held in, we found a projector.”

“A proj—“

That.

Mother.

Fucking.

Cock.

Sucker.

He had projected an image of his ‘veilfire’ onto his hand.

And my brain had just run with it.

I was going to kill him.

I was going to murder him to death.

Too bad I was an arm down.

And in no shape to fight anyone, including but not limited to a deluded, bed-ridden, psychopathic asshole.

She avoided my gaze. “Perhaps I should not have said anything. You seem…upset.”

That was a fucking understatement. “No. I would rather know all about the depths of his depravity.”

“About Cullen…” Detective Pentaghast started, trailing off as she decided how to proceed.

“I’m sure he’s already told you all about how I ripped out his heart and stomped it into a pulp.”

She frowned. “Actually, he hasn’t. Until you and Solas began discussing it, I didn’t know that something had happened between the two of you.”

“Oh.” Well, fuck.

“I had just assumed that his behavior towards Solas was to do with the man himself.”

“Does this mean that you’re going to break my face? Or shoot me accidentally on purpose?”

She looked aghast. “Of course not. Why—“

“The thinly veiled threat you made about what would happen to me if I hurt him.”

“Ah. I would not actually—“ She floundered slightly. “You have lost—you are in the hospital—“

“Then…once I’m out—“

“I think that you have suffered enough in the past week. I would not kick you while you are down.” Her eyebrow arched, as she not so discreetly checked out my left arm. “Was it something that he did?”

“No. Of course not. He’s been—no.” I couldn’t exactly tell her that it had been a preemptive measure born of years of conditioning. She didn’t know me. She wouldn’t understand. She would probably tell me that I was being crazy. “In the long run, things just won’t work out between us. Ending it now, before either of got too attached was the best thing, really.”

I couldn’t hurt him, and I wouldn’t give him the chance to hurt me.

Because he could.

He could absolutely fucking destroy me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would have been up sooner, but I have had a hell of weekend (Sunday/Monday if you want to get technical).
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	25. Visitors

Cullen had sent me flowers.

I had never gotten flowers before.

From anyone.

So it was especially shocking to receive them from someone whose heart I had stomped on.

The arrangement was beautiful, mostly red with a couple white flowers sprinkled in. There was a single red rose in the center, and it was the only flower that I was confident enough to call by name.

No one had ever sent me flowers, so I had never bothered to learn the different kinds.

I wasn’t even sure if I _liked_ flowers.

I definitely liked the gesture though.

And the thought that he was thinking of me.

Because I had been thinking of him.

A lot.

I bit my lip as I stared down at the tiny envelope that had accompanied them.

What harm could it do to open it?

A fuck ton most likely.

I had let myself be tentatively happy with Cullen.

He had only been mine for a brief flash of time, but I had grown frighteningly attached to him.

I couldn’t let someone have that sort of power over me again.

Breaking things off had been the right thing to do.

I knew I had made the right choice.

So, why did I feel so empty?

Why did I miss him more than I missed my arm?

It was ridiculous.

 _I_ was ridiculous.

No matter how much it hurt right now, this _was_ for the best.

Eventually I would be able to look back on our time together as a fond memory of brief happiness.

Happiness that I was lucky enough to experience.

Happiness that I didn’t deserve.

But for now, thinking of him hurt.

A lot.

I couldn’t open the envelope.

I couldn’t risk seeing something that might weaken my resolve.

But I couldn’t throw it away either.

That would be like throwing away a little piece of myself that I wasn’t ready to part with.

Fuck.

Why was everything so complicated?

“Wassat?” Sera had appeared out of thin air. Or maybe I had just been too focused on the envelope to see or hear her approach.

“Nothing!” I hastily shoved the envelope under my pillow. A brilliant overreaction that was sure to raise her suspicions.

“Yer lookin’ awful conflicted over nothin’.” Her gaze fell to the vase of red and white flowers on my bedside table as she took a seat next to me on the bed. “Who’re those from?”

I sighed. “Cullen.”

“How d’ya know that if ya haven’t opened the card?”

“I recognize his writing.” I could also smell his cologne on the card. But saying that out loud would be creepy and pathetic.

“Sooo,” she drawled. “Yer not gonna read it?”

I sighed. “No. Yes. I don’t know.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Ya want me to read it for ya?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“Yer gonna have to make a decision there, Ren Ren.”

“Later. I’ll make a decision later. I don’t want to make any decisions right now.”

The last two days, Sera had stayed guard by my side.

We hadn’t had any of the heavy conversations that I was almost certain she wanted to have.

We hadn’t talked about Solas.

We hadn’t talked about my arm, other than for her to interject her opinions on my treatment plan to my physiotherapist.

And by some miracle, she had managed to not bring up what had happened with Cullen either.

I was fairly certain that it would only be a matter of time before she cracked.

In that time, I hadn’t had any other visitors, which was the way I preferred it, if I was being completely honest.

I wasn’t ready for anyone else to see me.

Not yet.

For a limb that no longer existed, my lower left arm had been giving me a lot of issues. 

I had been struggling with my physiotherapy.

And I hated my temporary prosthetic arm.

It was just a useless lump of plastic.

My prosthetist assured me that things would get a little easier once I received my custom prosthetic. But depending on how long it took for my residual limb to heal, it could be anywhere from two to six months down the road before they even started fitting me for it.

Until then, I was stuck with the useless lump of plastic.

It was amazing how many things I did with my left hand that I didn’t even realize I did with my left hand. I couldn't even count how many times I had tried to brush my hair out of my face or accept something that was being handed to me in the last two days.

I had taken it for granted. Still, I thanked my lucky stars that it was my left arm, and not my right. At least I didn’t have to relearn the basic things, like writing, or brushing my teeth, or wiping my ass.

“Are ya good, Ren?” Sera interrupted my musings.

“Hmm?”

“Ya’ve got this far away look on yer face and…are ya good?”

“Define good.”

“I don’t mean about all of this shite,” she gestured to my body vaguely. “I mean, when ya were talkin’ to Sole-ass yer mental health came up and…are ya good?”

It looked like my time limit was up on the whole ‘avoiding the heavy conversation’ thing.

At least she was easing into it.

I ran my hand through my hair. Sera was no stranger to my anxiety or my depression, but it was still difficult for me to actually voice what was going on with me. I was so used to repressing everything and shoving it deep down inside me to deal with later. Unfortunately that method of dealing seemed to have reached it's expiry date and I was being forced to cope with everything all at once. My shitty past relationships. Losing my arm. Breaking up with Cullen. Everything was compounding and I was being crushed under the weight of it all. All of my choices. Everything that had led me here to this hospital bed.

Of course, I didn't voice any of those thoughts, because talking about them would be the healthy thing to do. Instead I oversimplified things, giving the bare minimum in terms of sharing. “Honestly, I’ve been better. Not knowing what my future holds in terms of my sanity is a little...daunting to say the least. And I could have gone my entire life without reliving _any_ of the shit that ‘you know who’ did to me.”

“Is that why yer pushin’ Cullen away? Cause of _him_?”

I frowned. “It’s…not that simple. Cullen and I got far too involved far too fast. I broke things off with Cullen because I don’t want anyone to have that much power over me.”

“That’s not healthy, Ren.”

“Well, ’shitty coping mechanisms’ is my middle name.”

“Why’re ya so afraid to be with him?”

I had been thinking about that question a lot over the past two days. “Putting aside the whole ‘power to destroy my heart’ thing that I mentioned like ten seconds ago, even if I didn’t have massive trust issues, the potential for a slow descent into madness isn’t exactly something that I want to force upon someone I genuinely care about.”

“Wot?” She gestured to herself indignantly. “Am I chopped liver ’r somethin’?”

I gave her a little half smile. “You don’t count.”

She snorted, crossing her arms. “Why the piss not?”

“Because you wouldn’t leave me even if I told you to.” But Cullen had. And that still stung a bit.

“Yer right,” she relented, posture relaxing. “I wouldn’t leave ya even if ya threatened me at knife point.”

“See? You’re amazing, Sera. I don’t tell you that enough. And I don’t know what the fuck I did to deserve a friend like you.”

She blew a strand of her pale blonde hair away from her face. “Don’t be a tit, Ren. Ya deserve happiness. Ya deserve friends. Ya deserve someone that looks at ya like yer the friggin’ moon and stars in the night sky. Ya gotta let someone in. Ya gotta take a chance on someone. I don’t want ya to be alone.”

“I’m not alone, Sera. I have you.”

“That’s not fair to either of us, Ren. Ya know that, right? I can’t be yer everything. I’m not saying that it has to be Cullen…but let _someone_ in.”

If I frowned any deeper, my face was going to crack in half.

“I know ya still love him. And I’ve seen the way he looks at ya.”

I toyed with the blanket on my lap. “Knowing everything you do about my past, would you do it? Would you let in someone that’s practically a stranger? Would you give them the chance to destroy your heart?”

“I trust him to be careful with ya, Ren. Heart and all.”

“But I don’t know if _I_ can. I’ve been burned twice already by men I thought gave a flying fuck about me. You have to admit that my track record with men is…dismal at best and completely and utterly catastrophic at worst.” I wasn’t even sure which relationship blow up had _actually_ been more catastrophic. Both had involved the Police. And both had involved me losing a part of myself.

“Ya just gotta fuck a few frogs before ya find yer prince charmin’.” She nodded matter-of-factly.

I wrinkled my nose, my internal pity party slamming to a halt at her choice of words. “That’s not—ugh. That’s just a fantastic mental image. Thank you for that. It’s supposed to be ‘kiss’, not ‘fuck’.”

She snorted. “Same diff.”

“ _Big_ difference actually.”

“So kissin’ frogs is better than fuckin’ ‘em?”

“Marginally, yes. Still gross though.”

“Stop deflectin’. He’s good for ya, Ren. I really think that he could help ya.”

Something tugged at the edges of my memory.

A blurry recollection of a half-remembered conversation.

“You’ve said that before.”

“Mmmm,” she pondered for a moment. “No I haven’t.”

“Not to me. To Cullen.”

She thought for a moment. “Oh. I suppose I did. Ya heard that?”

“Yes, I supposed I did.”

She shrugged. “He’s been through shite. You’ve been through shite. He seems to sorta know wot he’s doin’. I really do think he would be good for ya."

"That's an awful lot of pressure to put on someone who doesn't owe me a damn thing, you know that, right?"

"I think he's up for the challenge. I guess the big question is, does he make ya happy?”

“It doesn’t matter if he makes me happy right now, it’s the future that I’m worried about. What if—”

“You and yer ‘what if’s.”

It was my turn to snort. “Have you been talking to Bull?”

“My ears are burning.” Bull’s voice boomed from behind an alarmingly large—and frankly quite obnoxious—bouquet of flowers that had appeared in the doorway to my room.

Dorian entered shortly behind him, crossing the room and giving me a peck on each cheek.

I just stared at the flowers like an idiot.

“Those are for you, my dear.” Dorian gestured to the flowers that Bull was setting on the barely big enough window ledge.

I hadn’t received any flowers for the first twenty-four years of my life, and suddenly I was faced with two—very different—bouquets in the same day.

“Um, thanks?” I managed to get out.

“You’re very welcome. How are you feeling?”

I shrugged lamely. “Good, I guess. Um, I don’t want to seem rude, but…what are you doing here?”

Dorian sighed dramatically as he took a seat in the chair that Sera had been sleeping in for the past two nights. “Sera has finally given us the all clear to come see you.”

I turned to Sera. “You’ve been keeping visitors away?”

She nodded. “Figured ya’d want some time to yerself.”

I smiled at her gratefully. “This is why you’re my best friend.”

While Dorian had been busy…being Dorian, Bull had dragged in a chair from the hallway.

“I’m afraid we can’t stay long." Dorian lamented. "Places to go, criminals to question on behalf of a corrupt government. You know how it is.”

“No," I said. "Actually, I do not. Are you talking about Solas?"

Dorian nodded.

"They haven’t let you in to question him yet?”

"No," Dorian replied.

I turned to Bull. "What about the Inquisition? Have they had a chance?"

Bull shook his head. "The Police aren't too thrilled to have the Inquisition anywhere near this. But they are cooperating with us. Because of you."

"Me?" I frowned, surprised. "Why me?"

"It was all hands on deck to find you. And the Police never would have done it without the Inquisition. Detective Pentaghast seems to warming up to us, slowly but surely. Enough shop talk. How are you doing?" Bull nodded to my arm.

I frowned. "Not great in the arm department. I hate the prosthetic."

“Yer prostitute said—“ Sera started.

“Pros _THETIST_ , Sera! Pros _thetist_!” I shook my head.

“Isn’t that wot I said?”

“No. It is not.”

“Please enlighten us to what Renna’s ‘prostitute’ said.” Dorian encouraged with an amused smile.

I shot him a dark look.

“He said that this wasn’t gonna be forever. When ya get yer shiny new arm everythin’ll be right as rain.”

I snorted. "Who knows how long that will take?"

"Two to six months." Bull said helpfully.

"How—"

Bull shrugged his massive shoulders. "I know a couple of guys who've needed prosthetics over the years. I can pass along their contact information if you want to talk to someone about what you're going through."

"I'll have to get back to you on that one. Thanks though." It would probably be a good idea for me to talk to _someone_ about what I was going through. But I wasn't sure that it was something that I was quite ready for.

Dorian glanced down at his flashy gold watch. “It would appear that it is time for us to take our leave."

"You've only just got here." I protested.

"We'll return tomorrow," Dorian promised, rising from his seat. "Ta, my darlings.”

"See ya later, pipsqueak. And other pipsqueak." Bull nodded to Sera and I in turn as he followed Dorian out of the room.

 

My next set of visitors popped in roughly an hour after Dorian and Bull had left.

Varric and—

“Detective Pentaghast?” I was more than a little surprised to see her muscular form towering behind Varric in the doorway. “What can I do for you? Did you need something? An official statement, or…?”

“I am…not here in an official capacity. I wanted to…see how you were doing.”

“Oh. As good as can be expected I suppose.”

“That is—“ A buzzing sound filled the air, and she frowned down at her phone. “I apologize. I need to take this.”

I turned to Varric as he settled himself in a chair, my face full of disbelief. “She just wanted to check on me?”

“Yeah. She’s worried about you.”

I was very confused. “Me? Why? She doesn’t even know me.”

“She likes your spunk.”

“Spunk? I'm not spunky.”

“Look kid, she doesn’t have a lot of female friends. Shocking, I know. But I think you’d like her if you got to know her.”

“I don’t know if that’s the best—" Something suddenly occurred to me. "Is she trying to lull me into a false sense of security?"

"Why would she—"

"A part of me is still fairly convinced she’s going to beat me up for what happened with Cullen once I’m released from the hospital.”

"Nah." He shook his head, a fond smile playing across his lips. “She’s a hopeless romantic.”

“What do your shitty books have to do with my current predicament?”

“Watch it,” he glared good-naturedly, pointing a finger at me. “My books are a literary masterpiece.”

“ _Hard in Hightown_ , absolutely is, without a doubt. But the entire _Swords and Shields_ line up? Those books are straight up terrible, horrible, awful porn, Varric and you know it.”

“Fine,” he relented. “You’ve got me there.”

“So, the what’s the connection between her being a hopeless romantic and me getting to keep all of my teeth?”

“She doesn’t believe that you and Curly are through. She thinks that your love story is going to have a happy ending.”

I shook my head. “That’s not how real life works.”

“Don’t go all jaded on me, Poppy. You’re supposed to be the ray of sunshine.”

I snorted. “Being the ray of sunshine is a lot of fucking work.”

Detective Pentaghast returned, her eyes falling to the bouquet that Cullen had sent as she took a seat in the vacant chair by my bed. “That is an odd assortment of flowers.”

“Is it?” I genuinely had no idea. “I thought they were pretty.”

“They are ‘pretty’, yes. They just aren’t flowers that would normally be paired together. Red tulips: a declaration of love. Red camellia: the sender’s destiny is in your hands. White chrysanthemums: loyalty and devoted love. A single red rose: romantic love.” She recited neatly. “I can hazard a guess at who this bouquet is from.”

I didn’t know that different flowers had different meanings. And what did she mean that ‘the sender’s destiny is in my hands’? I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. “Did he tell you to say all of that?”

“No, but it is clear that Cullen put a lot of thought into this.”

“How do you know all of that? About the flowers I mean.”

“My family is very…notable in Nevarra. I was raised participating in frivolous feminine hobbies, and flowers happened to be the one ‘gender-appropriate’ hobby I actually enjoyed.”

“What about this one?” I gestured to the one from Dorian and Bull. “What does this one mean?”

She snorted. “It means, I’ve got far more money than sense, and I think that these flowers look ‘pretty’ together. It likely weighs more than you do.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. After all, I have lost about five pounds in arm in the past week. What non-gender-appropriate things do you do for fun, Detective?” I already knew about her absolutely abysmal taste in books. I didn’t want to go there.

“Cassandra. Please.”

“All right, _Cassandra_.” It felt horribly wrong saying her first name like we were already friends.

Behind her, Varric gave me a very sarcastic double thumbs up and mouthed something that may have been ‘nailed it.’

She nodded as if she accepted my awkward attempt at making friends like an adult. “I enjoy sparring or spending time at the shooting range.”

“So, you like hitting things? Have you ever tried throwing knives?”

Varric groaned. “Weapons, Poppy? You too? Seriously?”

“Why do you sound surprised?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “You have met Sera, right? Blonde elf, likes to shoot things with a bow and arrow? Showed off at your Satinalia party last year by doing trick shots from the balcony?”

“That may or may not ring a bell. I was very drunk.”

Cassandra frowned disapprovingly. “You allowed someone to shoot a bow and arrow _inside_ your home?”

Varric sighed, giving me a long-suffering look. “You just had to get me in trouble with the law, didn’t you?”

“Of course. That’s what I’m here for. Awkward small talk and ratting my friends out to the fuzz.”

“That does sound like you.”

Cassandra turned a reproachful glare that clearly said ‘we will discuss this later’ at Varric before turning her attention to me. “To answer your question, no. I find throwing knives too finicky.”

“What about axes?” She seemed like someone who would be into that sort of thing.

“No. Guns are the only thing that I have aimed at a target. But I’ll admit that I am intrigued by the idea.”

“Personally I find them a little on the heavy side. But someone with your muscle tone should have absolutely no issues with that.” I felt my heart sink a little as I realized that axe throwing had just become twice as difficult for me. I had needed two hands before. I would need to seriously beef up my upper body strength if I ever had any hope of even _lifting_ an axe again.

“Maybe once you are released you and I could go give it a try?”

“I would like that.” Even if I wouldn’t be able to throw an axe, I could still throw my knives. That had only ever required my right hand.

Varric put a hand on Cassandra's arm, beaming up at her. "See Cas? And you were worried the two of you would have nothing in common.”

“’Cas’?” I echoed, appalled. “What the fuck kind of nickname is ‘Cas’?”

Varric shrugged, unbothered by my disapproval. “Uh, the good kind?”

“No.” I ‘boo’ed him and gave him a thumbs down. “That’s just lazy.”

“I didn’t think you would want to hear her _actual_ nickname.”

“Which is?”

He opened his mouth.

“ _Varric_. _No._ ” Cassandra’s voice was a growl as she frantically slapped her hand over his mouth.

“Varric, yes!” I encouraged gleefully. The fact that she was so against me knowing made my curiosity burn brighter.

He moved her hand aside grinning roguishly. “I call her Tasty, because she has this lip gloss that tastes amazing and also—”

She groaned, drowning out the last part of his sentence, which was fine because I could probably guess where it was going.

I let out a delighted giggle. I would have clapped my hands if I had two of them to rub together.

A new buzzing sound filled the room, some cheesy classic rock song accompanying it.

Varric glanced down at his phone. “It’s my editor. I was supposed to meet her today. I have to take this. See you later, Poppy.”

With that, he stood and left the room.

“And on that mortifyingly personal note, I should probably leave as well.” She stood and paused, worrying her bottom lip between her perfect white teeth.

“What is it, Det—Cassandra?”

“Feel free to tell me that it is none of my business but…you and Cullen…”

“What about me and Cullen?” I asked, unintentionally defensive.

“What happened? The two of you seemed so happy, so in lo—“

“Don’t say ‘in love’. We weren’t in love, Detective. We hardly know each other. We were pretty much just strangers who fucked.”

"I don't believe that." She frowned. “He has not been the same since—“

Maybe we couldn't be friends after all. I didn't want to hear about Cullen and how I had done a fucking number on him. I glared up at her. “I don’t mean to be an insensitive bitch, but he’s a grown ass man. He’ll get over it.”

She was unfazed by my glare. “Even if you believed that were true, will _you_?”

“Will I what?”

“Get over it? I know you miss him. You glanced over at the bouquet he sent approximately sixty times in the short while I have been here.”

I frowned. I couldn’t deny that.

“May I offer some advice?”

I nodded cautiously, not trusting myself to speak around this very observant woman.

“I have never seen Cullen this…involved with anyone he has previously dated. There has always been some part of himself he was holding back. He has never fully given himself to anyone the way that he has given himself to you. I have also never seen him as happy as he was with you.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I am saying, do what is in your heart. I will come back tomorrow with Varric." She paused before adding, "If that is all right with you.”

I nodded slowly.

She nodded back and as she took her leave, I realized something.

I liked Cassandra.

It seemed that she was hell bent on aggressively befriending me.

And offering me life advice.

It was a much-preferred alternative to her beating me to a pulp.

Despite her well-meaning advice, I couldn’t listen to my heart.

My heart was a selfish, selfish thing.

My heart wanted to beg Cullen to come back and never leave.

 

It was my first night without morphine.

I couldn’t sleep.

I didn’t want to sleep.

I was _afraid_ to sleep.

I was in a mild amount of pain from my arm, but that wasn’t the reason for my nocturnal apprehension.

Solas’ words bounced around in my head, not for the first time, and definitely not for the last.

 _The shackles of their medications_.

This was it.

No more heavy painkillers.

No more layer of protection.

I was on my own.

Metaphorically speaking anyway.

Sera was passed out in the chair beside my bed, snoring softly.

She would have gladly woken up and talked me down from my building panic attack.

But I didn’t want to bother her.

This was my issue to deal with.

She wouldn’t always be there at my bedside.

It wasn't fair to burden her with all of my shit.

She had her own life to live.

And I needed to learn to deal with this on my own.

I slid my hand under the pillow, hugging it tightly as I tried in vain to get comfortable.

My fingers grazed the edge of the envelope that had come with Cullen’s bouquet.

The bouquet of flowers he had used to silently shout his love for me.

Which I would have never known if Cassandra hadn’t said anything.

It was a bad idea.

But I couldn’t _not_ read it.

I had to know.

With shaking fingers, I tugged the small card from the envelope.

His neat writing filled both halves.

_I need to apologize for my behavior._  
_I shouldn’t have left you the way that I did._  
_I should have stayed and fought for you._  
_I should have shown you that you are absolutely worth loving._  
  
_Even if you never allow me the chance to say it in person:_  
_I am in love with you._  
  
_I think I’ve been in love with you since the moment I first saw you._  
_You’re beautiful._  
_You’re funny._  
_You’re smart._  
_And I’ll say it again: you are worth loving Renna Lavellan._

 

Fat wet tears rolled down my cheeks.

A silent sob caught in my throat.

Fuck.

Fuck.

 _Fuck_.

I wanted to text him.

I wanted to hear his voice.

I wanted to _see_ him.

But I had no way to contact him.

My phone was long gone.

It had gone missing shortly after I had, and I hadn’t had the chance to replace it yet.

Maybe it was for the best that I didn’t have it.

This was simply a moment of weakness.

It would pass.

I could be strong.

I had to be strong.

For my own sake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that one day I’ll stop adding chapters and actually finish this…but today is not that day. Sorry, not sorry. XD
> 
> Side note: I’m so happy that Renna and Cassandra are finally on a first name basis. It was getting to be a pain in the ass typing out ‘Detective Pentaghast’ every time they were in a room together. 
> 
> Also, fun fact about me: I find it a fuck of a lot easier to print out a chapter and physically edit it with a red pen. So I shortened her name to ‘Det. Pen.’ anytime I had to physically write it. Which has been a lot the past couple of chapters. I would have shortened it to DP…but I am the furthest thing from a mature adult and I would have giggled every time I wrote/saw it.
> 
> Writing is such an interesting career. You learn a lot of really obscure shit about very random things. In preparation for the brief like two-sentence mention of prosthetics in this chapter, I did like an hour's worth of reading. I also read more about the meaning of flowers than I ever thought I would in my lifetime. I don’t even particularly like flowers. I am incredibly prone to killing them almost immediately after I receive them.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	26. Past

It had been exactly one week since I had first woken up in the hospital.

It had been exactly one week since I had last seen Cullen.

It had been exactly four days since he had sent me flowers.

And as much as I wanted to fixate on him and the radio silence that I had encouraged, I had other things that I _needed_ to focus on.

I was still under observation for my impromptu amputation and my contact with the Fade.

It had been exactly four days since I had been taken off the heavy pain medication.

Every night since then I had woken up in a cold sweat, plagued by twisted memories of my time with my ex.

Everything that I had been repressing for the past seven years was starting to slowly bubble to the surface, eroding my carefully constructed layers of protection.

And among the shattering of my internal safeguards, the Fade was constantly lurking in the back of my mind.

An itch that I couldn’t scratch.

A poison that I had no hope of salvation from.

I couldn’t explain what was happening to me.

And the so-called ‘professionals’ had no better ideas than I did.

I mentioned to my doctors that I was experiencing some ‘adverse night time side effects’. But I didn’t go into the details of my nightmares.

The only thing that had managed to keep them at bay was the pain medication. But I couldn’t exactly rely on narcotics for the rest of my life to get a good night’s sleep.

So I was left in a horrible sort of limbo.

I declined the psychiatric evaluation that was gently—but firmly—recommended that I participate in.

I was months away from graduating, and I couldn’t afford to entertain anything that might halt or hinder that.

My goals were within my grasping reach.

I was nearly there.

I just had to make it the next few months.

Once I found stable employment I could let myself crumble and break under the stress of everything.

Until then though I would remain tight-lipped and solitary.

 

Luckily, my laptop and textbooks had been recovered from the school. When I didn’t return the night I was taken, a friend of Sera's from my study group had contacted her to pick up my things.

It had taken me a few days before I felt well enough to even crack a textbook. After that, I had emailed all of my professors—with great difficulty, because I had to type one-handed—letting them know about my unplanned hospital stay. I didn’t mention why I was in the hospital, and I didn’t mention Solas, because I was fairly certain that the Police wanted to keep his involvement in the whole debacle under wraps.

My professors had been sympathetic, sending me coursework to occupy my free time.

I had missed the deadline on some of my assignments, and there were some quizzes I would have to make up, but my pre-hospitalization grades would mostly keep my GPA where it needed to be.

 

Since Sera had allowed him to start visiting, Dorian had taken to keeping me company between the hours of noon and 5pm, giving her a break from my constant pessimism.

I was heartbroken, and physically broken, and probably more than a little mentally broken. So, I wasn’t exactly the most fun person to be around.

Dorian didn’t seem to mind that I wasn’t a ray of sunshine.

He seemed to enjoy my dark humor and sarcasm.

And I enjoyed his company immensely.

As far as I could tell, he was around the same age as Cullen, so he had at least a decade’s worth of stories of his time on the Minrathous Police force. He kept his stories mostly Police related, never mentioning his family. I didn’t pry, I knew all about having a family that you wanted to forget that you were a part of.

I still hadn’t heard the full story of how he and Bull got together. Any time I asked about it, he told me that it was a story for a special occasion.

Most days he took me for a walk through the hospital’s indoor garden. We would settle in on one of the benches, me curled up at his side. I took comfort in his presence. He was like the older brother that I never knew I wanted.

The garden itself was peaceful, but looking at all of the flowers reminded me that I hadn’t contacted Cullen.

Not that I had had any intention of doing so.

The best way to get through this was to keep all lines of communication severed.

This particular day, exactly one week from the day that I had woken up, Dorian had insisted that we stay in my hospital room.

And it didn’t take long for me to find out why.

“I have some news,” he started slowly, cautiously.

"Oh?" I asked.

“I’ve requested a transfer.”

“Oh.” I felt my heart sink a little. I didn’t want Dorian—or Bull for that matter—to go anywhere. I was starting to get used to seeing so much of them. “Where to?”

He looked at me as if my question were possibly the stupidest thing that he had ever heard. “Why, here of course, my dear girl.”

“What? Really?” My eyebrows rose in surprise. “Why would you want to move _here_? This place is a fucking shit hole.”

“While that may be true, it is also the final resting place of my obsession with Corypheus. What better place to settle down? Also, there seems to be no shortage of crime.”

“It’s because Bull likes it here. Isn’t it?”

“Yes. It is. We’re thinking of moving to the suburbs and adopting a few wayward elf youths. Know anyone looking for two new daddies?”

“Sugar or other?” I asked without missing a beat.

The corner of his lipped twitched. “Cute.”

I shrugged. “It’s important to specify these things. I mean, if it’s sugar daddies with no strings attached, then I wholeheartedly volunteer as tribute. But if you’re talking like _actual_ daddies then I’ll have to pass. I have enough disappointment and mixed feelings surrounding my _actual_ parental figures.”

“You already have an older man who is dying to take care of you. Don’t be greedy.”

He managed to seamlessly bring up Cullen at least once a day.

And I managed to completely shut down and abruptly change the subject every time he did. “Do you mind if I do some studying?”

“Of course not, my dear.” He sighed, delving into the depths of his satchel.

I gave him an amused look as he produced an embroidery hoop. “What is that?”

He settled a pair of reading glasses on the end of his nose, lifting his gaze to look at me over the top of the frame. “Cross-stitch. My therapist said I needed a non-violent hobby.”

I shook my head, still very much amused. “Does it _really_ count as non-violent if you’re stabbing something repeatedly?”

He let out a chuckle. “That’s exactly what _he_ said.”

“Can I see?”

He held up the hoop for my examination and I let out a laugh. The word ‘cunt’ was stitched in stark black cursive. He had just started on a border of roses, barely two rosebuds in.

“That is beautiful. I want to wallpaper my bedroom with a million of them.”

“You may have this one when it’s complete.”

“That would be amazing, thank you. Do you have any others with you?”

He pulled a few more from his bag for my viewing pleasure.

 

_‘Don’t try to explain yourself to idiots. You’re not the fuckface whisperer.’_

_‘I like pretty things & the word fuck.’_

_‘They said I could be anything, so I became a disappointment.’_

_' ~~live, laugh love~~ _  
_don’t be a fucking cunt’_

 

Each phrase was surrounded by either an intricate border, or a smattering of detailed roses.

I found it incredibly difficult to pick my favorite out of the bunch. They were all amazing.

I snorted out another amused laugh. “These are fantastic. If you decide that you don’t want to be a detective anymore, I think this right here might be your true calling.”

“So I’ve been told.” He gathered up the extraneous cross-stitched pieces of fabric and returned them to his bag.

We fell into a comfortable silence, Dorian working on his cross-stitch and me studying my textbooks like my life depended on it. Because it absolutely did.

After about an hour of staring at my ‘Understanding Psychopathy’ textbook, I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. I wasn't sure if I could continue doing this. It didn't matter that I had given up so much to get where I was. Thoughts of Solas and my ex swirled together in my head. “I may have to rethink my chosen career path.”

Dorian looked up from his cross-stitch, slightly concerned. “Why’s that?”

“Someone who wants to profile criminals for a living should have seen this whole Solas thing coming a mile away. It would appear that my instincts in these matters are complete and utter shit.”

He set his embroidery hoop aside, giving me his full attention. “It’s not like anyone could have predicted your unassuming professor to be the mastermind behind a billion dollar drug empire.”

“The signs were all there though. He tried to manipulate me into not going to the Police under the guise of having feelings for me. And I stupidly, stupidly fell for it. He kept me strung along without having to say _anything_ to me. Literally. We fucked once, and then he ignored me for a week and I still _barely_ questioned it.”

“You were blinded by his… _charm_.” Dorian shivered and stuck out his tongue as if he had tasted something rancid. Needless to say, his brief interrogation of Solas had not left him impressed by the man.

I gave him a dry look. “Did it hurt to say that? It looked like it hurt.”

“What I’m trying to say is, you were under the impression that he had feelings for you. You thought he was safe. You had absolutely no reason to think that he was anything other than exactly what he appeared to be.”

“That seems to be about par for the course with me.” I muttered under my breath, returning my focus to my textbook.

We fell into another silence that didn’t last nearly long enough.

Dorian cleared his throat. “You seem to believe that you are fundamentally unlovable.”

I snorted, lifting my eyes from my textbook to look at him. “Well, that was straight the fuck out of left field.”

He ignored me, continuing, “That isn’t the case you know. Far from it. Bull and I adore you. And we aren’t the only ones.”

“For you guys I’m like some younger sibling that keeps fucking up in new and amusing ways." 

"That's not true."

I shut my textbook and pushed it away. This was going to be a _conversation_ whether I wanted it to be or not. "Why do _you_ think that _I_ think I’m unlovable, exactly?”

“Sera may have mentioned something regarding your past...and your alarmingly abysmal taste in men.”

I sighed rubbing at the knot quickly forming in the center of my forehead. “Of course she did.”

“And then Bull may have looked into any Police records involving your name.”

“As any normal person would do.” I should have been pissed at the blatant disregard for my privacy. But mostly I was just fucking exhausted. I had been running from this _thing_ with my ex for seven years. Nearly a third of my short life. “Does everyone know?”

Fuck.

Did Cullen know?

Fuck.

 _Fuck_.

If he knew, then it was really well and truly over between us.

For good.

There was no way that he would ever want me if he knew what I had been through.

Maybe it was for the best.

Because I had absolutely no intentions of trying to win him back.

But still.

_Fuck._

“No. We did not think it would be proper to spread the information we found.”

Thank the Creators for small miracles. After the small burst of pure, unfiltered _relief_ that flooded my system, a scowl settled on my lips. “But it was proper enough to look it up in the first place?”

“I do apologize for that.” He actually did look apologetic. And I could guess why. “The things he did to you…”

There it was.

I snorted. “That was nothing. Not even the worst of it really. Just one tiny microscopic incident in a sea of many. It just happened to be the time I had enough. Or I suppose, the time that Sera had enough on my behalf.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn't plan on going to the Police. Sera had to force me to do it. I didn’t want to fuck up his life by telling someone what he had done to me. How messed up is that? He beat me half to death and left me in a dark alley in the middle of the night, and I wanted to protect _him_. Because I thought I was in love with him. It didn’t matter that I was just his fucking toy, his punching bag. I cared more about _him_ than I did about _me_. Because yeah, I suppose that I do believe that I am ‘fundamentally unlovable’. _He_ constantly reminded me of that. My grandparents constantly reminded me of that. The first time I visited their home with a broken arm, do you know what my grandfather said to me?”

He thought for a moment, before shaking his head. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“My grandfather told me that I was lucky. _Lucky_.” I laughed derisively at the memory. I remembered the conversation clear as day. I had come over to grab my things and my grandparents had seen the shiny white cast encasing my arm and they hadn’t even asked if I was okay.

“’Lucky’?” He repeated as if he wasn’t sure that he had heard me properly. “Your grandfather told you that you were lucky to have your arm broken by a man?”

I nodded. “Lucky that someone cared enough about me, was _passionate_ enough about me to do that to me.”

A look of mild horror spread across his face. “ _Fasta vass_. That is…incredibly fucked up.”

I shrugged. “What more could you expect from the people who constantly told their youngest daughter that she was a mistake? They drove my mother away, and I don’t even really blame her for abandoning me with them. I only stayed as long as I did because I had nowhere else to go. _He_ was my escape. And a very eventful escape he was. Within two weeks of dating him, he had broken my arm, and I had moved in with him. I was a fifteen-year-old living with a twenty-two year old in an apartment that his parents paid for. My grandparents were grateful to him, because _he_ meant that they didn’t have to deal with me anymore. They completely washed their hands of me; I was no longer their responsibility.

“With the exception of him breaking my arm, everything was sunshine and rainbows for the first few months. Then he decided he wanted to bang someone his own age for a bit. Someone _experienced_. So he broke up with me and kicked me out. My grandparents flat out refused to take me back. So I stayed with Sera until I could get my shit sorted out. I never got the chance to do that though, because within a week he got tired of his latest toy and convinced me to give him another chance. Not that it took much convincing. I was _lucky_ to have him in my life after all. _Lucky_ that an older man wanted to pay any sort of attention to me.

“We fell into a routine, every few months he would break up with me and kick me out of ‘our apartment’, then he would beg me to take him back. He would beat me black and blue and—“ _Rape me_. I couldn’t say the words out loud. Not yet. That would make what he had done to me real. And I needed some time to process the feelings that I was just now being forced to deal with after nearly a decade of repressing everything and pretending that I wasn’t still that same broken and scared and directionless little girl. “Well, you saw the Police report. I’m sure that you could make an educated guess about how we spent our time together. I was with him—on and off—for three years. Then he left me for dead in an alley. Sera got me in contact with the Police, he got arrested. And I got the fuck out of dodge and moved here to go to school.”

“I am at a loss for words. I think that this might be the first time in my entire life that I don’t know what to say.”

“Wow. My sob story has rendered you speechless? I better mark this day down on my calendar.”

He frowned. “Don’t be glib. I am truly sorry for what he did to you.”

“Now you know why I’m fundamentally unlovable.” I gave a sort of half shrug. I had never spoken to anyone this much about my past. That included Sera. She only knew as much as she did because she had been there for most of it.

He shook his head. “You are not unlovable. You deserve to be loved, Renna.”

“I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.”

“As you should, because it’s true.”

"Honestly, given my track record, it might be time to swear off of men entirely and just become a crazy cat lady.”

“We aren’t all bad.”

“You’re right. Too bad I haven’t got the right bits for both you and Bull.”

“I was actually referring to Cullen, you know.”

I blew out a hard breath. “I don’t want to talk about Cullen right now.”

“That’s a shame, because I really think that we should.”

It appeared that he was done tiptoeing around the subject.

I snorted, lapsing into a conflicted sort of silence. I gnawed on the inside of my lip. “You can’t tell Cullen any of this.”

“I hadn’t planned on it. That's something the two of you need to discuss if and when you're ready.”

“I'll never be ready for that conversation." I rubbed at my forehead, the knot from earlier returning in full force. “It doesn't really matter anyway, things are over between us, simple as that.”

“It’s hardly that simple. The two of you seem to be made for one another, damage and all.”

“Woooow.” I drew out the word sarcastically. “You know exactly how to make a girl feel special.”

“I simply meant that—“

“I know I’m damaged. Emotionally as well as physically.” And mentally too if I was keeping an accurate tally of my damage.

“Physically?” He frowned, gaze shifting discreetly to my left side. “I fail to see what your ‘disarming’—”

“Disarming. Cute. I’m glad that enough time has passed for you to feel comfortable joking about my traumatic limb loss.” I gave him a humorless smile. “My 'disarming' as you so charmingly put it, isn't fair to him.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I know how he thinks. I know he blames himself for what happened to me. He was torn up over much less than this.” I gestured to my left arm. “I know that he wants to take care of me. But I know from extensive experience that that would only end with him resenting me. I had to leave him before he could leave me. Don’t you get that? He was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn’t survive it if he left me. It would kill me.”

He was silent as his dark eyes took me in, bathing me in his sympathy.

Against my better judgment the words had crept past my lips, “Have you seen him…since you know…”

He hesitated. “Yes. I have.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

As far as I knew, Dorian had been spending a good chunk of his time in the past few days right here with me. I frowned. “Really? Where?”

His look turned knowing. “You seem awfully interested—“

I crossed my arm. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Fine,” I spat. “I am. I miss him. But that doesn’t matter. This is the best thing for both of us, really.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

“Do you still love him?”

“Of course I do.” I paused, letting out a derisive little laugh. “Fuck. How could I not? He’s just so—" Amazing? Perfect? Exactly what I needed when I needed it? "But that doesn’t matter. It’ll pass. It has to. Right now my feelings don’t—”

“Dorian.” Cullen had magically appeared at the door to my room, as if we had summoned him by saying his name enough times. His tone was polite, clipped. His hard honey colored gaze drifted from me to Dorian and back again. “Excuse us, won’t you?”

“Of course.” Dorian nodded, standing.

At the movement, my attention shifted fully back to Dorian.

I wanted to grasp his wrist.

I wanted to beg him to stay with me for whatever _this_ was.

I knew I wasn’t strong enough to face it yet.

I needed more time.

I needed more distance.

I stared up at Dorian mutely, helplessly, sure that my panic was clearly visible in my face.

His hand rested on my knee, giving it a firm but gentle squeeze through the layers of my blankets.

Then he left.

My eyes tracked the motion, stopping to rest on Cullen.

My heart did an involuntary flip.

His gaze still had a hard edge. His face—handsome as ever—gave nothing away.

How much had he heard?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s nearly done! There’s only one more chapter left, and it’s sort of bittersweet to think about since I've been working on this in some capacity for the better part of a year now.
> 
> This will be a series (a duet with at least one short tie-in story), and I have started outlining the next ‘book’, so to speak, I’m just not sure how long it’ll be before I actually start posting it. It took me roughly five months to outline this story and throw together a first draft, so who the fuck knows, haha. 
> 
> That being said, I am planning on ‘book 2’ being significantly shorter than this monstrosity (I call it this lovingly of course) ended up.
> 
> So if you're interested in the continuation of Renna and Cullen’s story, please make sure that you subscribe.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	27. Home

Cullen was just standing there in the doorway.

He made no move to enter.

His presence caused questions to spiral through me.

Questions that I had no answers for.

Why wasn’t he coming in?

Why was he just hovering?

Was he waiting for my permission?

Why the hell was he here in the first place?

Things were over between us.

We were done.

Had he heard what I said about my ex?

Surely he would have made himself known if he were standing there for longer than thirty seconds, right?

He was too polite to stand out of sight and eavesdrop.

Unbidden, the words from his card echoed through my head.

_You are absolutely worth loving._

Would he still believe those words if he had heard the entirety of mine and Dorian’s conversation?

Probably not.

If he found out about everything my ex had done to me—or even the small chunk of it that I had told Dorian—he would see me for what I was.

Used up.

Worthless.

Definitely undeserving of the loving words from his card.

If he found out about my past, he would never want to look at me again.

I was sure of that.

But he was still here.

So he couldn’t have heard.

And if he hadn’t heard about my past, then I would do everything in my power to keep him from _ever_ hearing about it.

Because, despite the fact that we were over, I cared what he thought of me.

He was still just standing there.

 _Staring_.

“Cullen,” I shifted uncomfortably at his continued stony silence. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see for myself how you were doing.” His eyes swept over me from head to toe.

“As you can see, I’m just peachy." My lips twitched into what I'm certain was a very forced, very uncomfortable looking smile. "How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough.”

“That’s really not an appropriate answer to my question.” I was wondering exactly how much damage control would be required to have him march right back out that door.

He shrugged, unbothered. “I also need to talk to you.”

I had an idea of what he wanted to talk about. And I really didn’t want to have this conversation, but I owed it to him to tell him _something_. I just had to figure out what the fuck that _something_ was.

I sighed, shrinking back against the incline of my pillows, tugging my blanket up over my left shoulder self-consciously. “You might as well come in.”

He nodded and took Dorian’s recently vacated seat at my bedside.

My gaze traveled his form silently, taking him in for what could very possibly be the last time—what _had to be_ the last time.

He looked as worn down as I felt.

The circles under his eyes were darker than the last time I had seen him, more pronounced.

How many sleepless nights had he endured because of me?

How much of his time had he _wasted_ thinking about me?

The dark stubble covering his jaw was long enough to be considered a short beard.

His hair was dull and flat, lacking its usual shine and carefully constructed disarray.

His shirt was rumpled, as if he had slept in it.

I had done this to him.

I had taken away his light, and turned him into the brooding shell that sat before me.

I didn't mean to break him.

But it was in my nature.

I was nothing more than a plague.

If he kept me around I would slowly seep into him, spreading through his veins, destroying, until there was nothing left.

I couldn't take anything else from him.

I just couldn't.

I bit my lip.

Seeing him like this was nearly as painful as it would have been if he hadn't come at all, or if he had strolled in here all upbeat as if nothing had happened between us.

My eyes stopped their slow, memorizing crawl over his form when they got to his hands.

His right hand was bandaged.

“It’s just a sprain.” He muttered, voice low.

My eyes flicked up to his.

He was looking away.

Embarrassed.

I was going to ask what had happened, but then I realized that I already knew the answer to that question. He had punched Solas. “Why? Why did you—”

He blew out a resigned breath. “I was angry. Some of it was misplaced...but a lot of it _was_ rightfully directed at him. He hurt you and—I had only intended to speak with him—but he provoked me and—not that it’s any excuse. I am not proud of my actions.”

“What did he say?” My voice was quiet.

His unbandaged hand clenched at the memory. “I would rather not—“

“What did he say?” I repeated, voice still level.

“He said that he couldn’t wait to be reunited with you. That he couldn’t wait to feel your—“ He spat out the words then stopped abruptly, still avoiding my gaze. “Well, I would rather not repeat the explicit way that he referred to your body. But he alluded to the delusion that he believes you will be his again.”

"Oh." I stared out the window over Cullen's shoulder. “I was never his to begin with.”

“That’s what I told him. While using his face as a punching bag. Luckily—or unluckily, I suppose—Cassandra came in and stopped me before I could do any further damage to him.”

“He deserved it," I muttered. "I wish that I could have been the one to do it, but I’m glad you punched him.”

He lifted his gaze to mine briefly before looking away. “So am I.”

We fell into an agonizing silence.

I hated it.

Conversation between us had always been easy.

I had done this to us.

I was the problem.

I opened my mouth to break the silence, but he beat me to it.

“Part of the reason why I came here today—It occurred to me that you may not be able to contact me yourself, even if you wanted to.” He produced my phone from his pocket, eyeing my open laptop with no small amount of pain seeping through the cracks of his stony façade.

His hurt hung in the air like a tangible thing, smothering me, choking me.

I wanted to ease his suffering, soothe the ache that I had caused.

I wanted to tell him how many times in the past four days I had nearly broken down and contacted him.

I wanted to show him the dozens of drafts that sat in my emails, unsent.

I wanted to let him know that he was on my mind constantly.

That I hadn’t forgotten him.

That I never could.

That I clung to my memories of our time together, no matter how brief, and that those memories were the only thing that could keep me going most days.

That I loved him with everything that I was.

But I kept my lips firmly sealed.

I could feel his stare on me.

But I couldn’t meet his gaze again.

It would tear right through me.

Undo me.

“Thank you for the flowers.” I muttered, trying to change the subject while simultaneously remembering that somewhere deep down I had been taught manners. “And the card.”

“You read it?” He sounded surprised.

I nodded, not trusting my voice to not betray my feelings, but still chancing a glance up at him through my lashes.

“I wasn’t sure that you would." His tone was distracted as he eyed the large bouquet perched precariously next to his on the windowsill. "It would seem that I have some competition for your affections.”

I snorted before I could stop myself. “No. You really don’t. Those are from Dorian and Bull. I’m not exactly their type. I’m kind of lacking something important in the pants department to keep both of them satisfied.” I backpedaled hastily once I realized exactly what I had said, “Not that you have my affections, because we aren’t together. Not anymore.”

His impassive mask slammed back into place. “I am aware. What I would like to know is why.”

“Does the why really matter? You already left me once, I’m sure that you could manage it again.” I couldn’t keep the bitter edge from creeping into my voice.

“You told me to leave." He reminded me evenly. "You don’t get to be angry with me for listening to you.”

He was right.

That wasn’t fair of me.

I sighed tiredly. “What if I wanted you to leave now?”

“I would, if I actually believed that you meant it.”

“I do mean it. If coming here was some elaborate plan to try to win me back, it isn’t going to work. I’m not going to change my mind.” The words twisted around my insides, tightening like a vice, making me feel physically ill.

He was silent for a moment, brows drawn together, his mouth a flat line. “I thought that we were happy.”

“We were.” The words escaped my lips quietly, unbidden. They sounded so small, but they carried so much weight.

He shook his head, as if to clear it. “Then I don’t understand what happened.”

“You don’t have to understand. You just have to accept it.”

“I can’t accept it, Renna. Not until I can understand why you’re pushing me away.”

I shook my head. “I feel like nothing I have to say will _make_ you understand, Cullen.”

“All right, if you won’t tell me your reasoning, will you at least listen to me? I’m laying all my cards on the table. I’m here to fight for this—for us. I know that you’re hurting right now in more ways than one, but please don’t push me away. If you truly don’t want to be with me, then tell me now and I’ll walk out that door, and you’ll never have to see me again. But if there's any sort of chance...” He trailed off, looking up at me, eyes full of hope.

I met his imploring gaze as levelly as I could, hating that I had to shred his heart yet again. Hating that he wouldn't just let me slip quietly through his fingers. “I want you to go.”

His voice turned bitter, eyebrows drawing down into a frown. “At the very least, I want you to give me some sign that this has been as hard for you as it has for me. Some sign that our time together meant something to you.”

My temper flared, finally sparking something in me other than self-pity. “Are you fucking kidding me? You don’t think this has been difficult for me? Look at me, Cullen, _really_ look at me. I. Am. Fucking. _Miserable_."

His eyes widened slightly at my outburst, lips parted to interject. But I had more to say.

"You probably heard me say it to Dorian, because I’m fairly certain that you _were_ eavesdropping, but I’ll reiterate it _just for you_. Our time together meant _everything_ to me. You are the best thing that has _ever_ happened to me. _Ever_. It was so fucking hard to push you away. But it had to be done— _has to be_ done. I am trying to save you from getting trapped with _this_.” I gestured to myself.

“This was for my benefit?” He motioned between us, snorting in disbelief. “You don’t need to protect me, Renna. Apparently I’m a ‘grown-ass man’. And as such, I can make my own decisions.”

“Cassandra told you about that, then.” I frowned. So much for girl code. I supposed that I could cut her a little bit of slack, seeing as she and Cullen had been friends for far longer than she and I had been acquaintances. "Also, since when do you say 'ass' colloquially?"

He ignored my question. “You’re scared. I want you to admit it.”

“Of course I’m scared. I’m fucking _terrified_. Aren’t you? This thing between us happened so fast. We jumped into this and—“ The fight went out of me. I drew my knees up to my chest and rested my forehead against them.

“And?” He prompted.

“We barely know each other, Cullen.” I said quietly, staring at a hole in my blanket, worrying the edges with my fingers. “I don’t know your favorite color. Or your favorite food. I don’t know any of your favorites. Or when your birthday is. Or how many kids you want. Or if you even want them at all.”

“What does that have to do with—“

I finally met his confused gaze. “There’s no reason for you to love me. There is no reason for you to be fighting this hard to keep me. For all intents and purposes, we are strangers. Strangers who have fantastic sexual chemistry, but strangers nonetheless.”

“You’re wrong.”

"Oh." I frowned. “So we don’t have fantastic sexual chemistry?”

He blew out a frustrated breath. “That’s not what I—Renna, I might not know every little thing about you, and you might not know every little thing about me, but that’s something that comes with time. I don’t have to know every little thing about you to know that it drives me crazy when you bite your lip. Or to love the way that your breath hitches when I touch you. Or to know that I feel at peace when you’re in my arms. Or—”

“That’s just sex stuff, Cullen. You’re sort of proving my point that our relationship doesn’t have a solid foundation.”

“You’re right.” He agreed with a sigh, dropping his gaze down to his hands.

His acceptance hurt a little, but it was for the best in the long run. “See, we—“

“Your favorite color is green.”

“What?” My lips parted in surprise.

His golden gaze flicked up and held mine. “You gravitate towards the color green. You probably don’t even notice that you’re doing it. When faced with two items that are different colors, but otherwise the same, you pick the green one, without fail. For some reason, you actually enjoy cooking. I can tell that you enjoy it because you hum when you're in the thick of it, and you hum when you're happy. You bake when you need to clear your head. You have an alarmingly low tolerance for alcohol when it comes to wine, but you hold your hard liquor surprisingly well.”

My mouth snapped shut. In the short few weeks that we had known one another, he had been paying attention to _me_.

I wasn’t just some easy lay for him.

Still, I had to argue my point. I crossed my arm over my chest. “That doesn’t mean—“

“Your birthday is the 17th of Harvestmere.”

There was no way that he could know that. “How—“

He pointed to my right wrist. “It’s on your hospital bracelet.”

“So you’re observant,” I huffed. “Sort of comes with your job description. It doesn’t mean anything. You don’t know my deepest, darkest secret.”

“That may be true.” He conceded. “But you know mine.”

The lyrium.

My posture relaxed just a fraction. “Yeah…I suppose I do.”

“I don’t exactly go around advertising my past, Renna. You know other things about me too. Things that you probably don’t even realize that you know. You know that I can’t cook to save my life. You know that before I met you the only thing with any sort of nutritional value that I had in my fridge was beer.”

“That’s sort of the standard for bachelors, is it not?” I interjected.

He shook his head minutely, choosing to treat my question as rhetorical. “With you being in the hospital, not knowing if you were going to be okay, and then what happened after you woke up…these past two weeks have been absolute hell. I’m not myself when I’m not with you. You make me want to be a better man.”

I exhaled slowly, processing his words.

They were swaying me more than I cared to admit.

But I still had to do this.

To end things between us.

For his sake, as well as my own.

I hoped that I could get my thoughts out coherently enough to make him see that _we_ were a bad idea. “There’s something inside of me that’s broken...or maybe I never had it to begin with…but I’m not okay. I may never _be_ okay. I lost most of an arm, and as if the recovery for _that_ isn’t going to take enough of a toll I don’t know what’s going on with my head. Solas said that there might be some lingering effects from the Fade. He mentioned the potential for a slow descent into madness. I've been dealing with nightmares every night since I got off the morphine. So I think that there might be something to what he said. _This_ ,” I gestured to myself once again, “is a lot to deal with on a good day. And with the added bonus of the unknown? I would understand if you didn’t want to be with me anymore. I don’t expect you to stay—I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, and I can’t do this to you. I don’t want to put you through _this_. I don’t want to _burden_ you with this. I'm selfish. All I’ll ever do is take, and take, until you come to hate me, and I can’t bear the thought of you hating me. Let me do this one un-selfish thing. Please.”

“Nothing you could do or say could ever make me hate you.”

My heart was breaking all over again. “I’m not good for you, Cullen.”

“Shouldn’t I get to decide that?”

“Fuck, Cullen. Stop trying to make this harder than it needs to be.” Tears welled up, threatening to spill over.

His hand reached for mine, but he let it fall to the bed, almost close enough for our fingers to touch. “I am in love with you, Renna.”

“Even though it doesn’t make any logical sense, I’m in love with you too.” I choked out, breaths coming in short gasps as I willed myself not to break down. “Up until a week ago, when I imagined my future, I imagined you right there with me.”

“That doesn’t have to change. I want you in my life, Renna. I don’t care about the past. I only care about the future. _Our_ future.”

“I’m giving you an out. Please take it. I’m not strong enough—” My voice broke, a few tears escaping the corners of my eyes. I sounded desperate. “I can’t do it again. _Please_.”

He shook his head firmly. “No.”

“Cullen—“

“I promise to be by your side for as long as you’ll have me.” He moved onto the bed, the warmth of his proximity radiating through me.

I finally looked up, staring into his eyes, tears streaming down my face. “There is never going to be a day when I don’t want you.”

"Does that mean you're ready to give us a real chance?"

I took a moment to think.

To really _think_ about what I was doing.

In that moment, I decided to throw caution to the wind and give in to what I really wanted.

To give in to him.

Damn the consequences.

It took me another moment to find the words.

My voice was small, but sure. Resolved. "Yes. Yes, I am."

“Good.” All traces of hardness finally left his face, a small, tentative smile gracing it instead. “Now, that that’s settled, there is something that I have been wanting to do since you first woke up.”

“What?”

“May I kiss you?”

It was so formal. I hiccupped a teary laugh. “Yes. Yes you may.”

He gently brushed the tears from my cheeks, pressing his lips against mine in a whisper light touch. He pulled back so that we rested forehead to forehead. “I love you, Renna.”

“I love you too, Cullen.”

He pulled me into his arms, settling back against the incline of the bed.

I let my head rest against his chest.

With his arm wrapped protectively around me, and his familiar leather tinged scent surrounding me, I felt like I was home.

Like a crushing weight had been lifted from my chest, and I could breathe for the first time since I had woken up in this hospital bed.

My problems didn’t all magically disappear of course.

I knew that I still had at least ten truckloads worth of shit to deal with.

The dreams.

My past.

The loss of my arm.

But there would be time for that later.

Much, _much_ later.

For now I could just bask in this moment, in the warmth and love of Cullen’s embrace.

I looked up at him, trailing my fingers down the side of his jaw. “Are you planning on keeping the beard?”

He captured my fingers in his, placing a kiss against my palm. “I haven’t decided yet. Why do you ask?”

“I kind of like it. It’s very rugged and manly.”

“I—“ Cullen’s gaze settled on my bedside table. “What in the name of the Maker is this?” He held up Dorian’s cross-stitch project with a look of complete bewilderment.

I grinned up at him. “Dorian does cross-stitch as a non-violent hobby.”

His eyes met mine. “Vulgar cross-stitch?”

I nodded emphatically. “Isn’t it fantastic? I want to wallpaper my bedroom with them.”

"I suppose that 'fantastic' is one word for it." He mused, setting the cross-stitch project back on the table.

I was suddenly exhausted.

Crying was exhausting.

This time when silence claimed us, it was comfortable. Cullen kept himself occupied checking messages on his phone while I stayed snuggled into his side, giving in bit by bit to the siren song of unconsciousness.

“Red.” Cullen’s voice broke through the haze of near sleep.

“Hmm?” I lifted my chin to look at him.

His fingers toyed with a lock of my hair. “My favorite color is red.”

“I probably could have guessed that based on your home decor, actually.” I murmured, turning my face sleepily into his shirt.

“And my birthday is the 30th of August.”

“You don’t have to tell me everything right this instant, you know. You’re right. We have time.”

"Yes, we do." He mused, his fingers gently massaging my scalp, and sending me careening back towards unconsciousness.

I wasn't sure if I was out for hours, or minutes before my nap was abruptly brought to a disorienting halt.

“Ya look cozy.” Sera's voice mused from the doorway, bringing me back to the world of the living. "Ya kissed and made out?"

"That should be 'kissed and made up'." I corrected somewhat grumpily, shifting so that I could see her face without leaving the warmth of Cullen's chest.

"My way's more fun." She crossed the room and placed a drink tray and a bag of pastries on my bedside table, sliding Dorian's cross-stitch aside with an amused snort.

"She does have a point there." Cullen agreed, pressing a kiss to my temple.

"Well," I started with a stretch, "if you intend to keep me conscious, you better caffeinate me. Or things might get ugly."

Cullen helped me into a sitting position as Sera passed me one of the three drinks that were resting in the tray.

I took a slow sip of the dark-roasted heaven in a paper cup. "Mmmm."

“Andraste’s tits, am I glad to see the two of ya back together.” Sera said, handing Cullen the other cup of coffee as she took a sip out of her alarmingly blue, definitely sugar filled frappucino.

Cullen accepted the cup with a confused stare. "You brought me a coffee? How did you even know I was here?"

"I have my ways." She wiggled her fingers mysteriously, then snorted. "Dorian mighta let it slip. Did ya know that him and Bull gossip worse than old ladies?"

"Bull does seem like the type." I nodded solemnly. "But I can't imagine Dorian stooping to anything as depraved as gossip."

Sera snorted. "Ya've got a real hero worship thing when it comes to him, eh?"

I grinned at her. "He's a dashing older man who does cross-stitch in his free time. What's not to worship?"

"I _am_ sitting right here, you know." Cullen interjected, a fake frown pulling at his lips.

"As you should be." I planted a kiss on his cheek.

"Yes," he agreed, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. "As I should be."

“I s’pose now Detective hotpants can make an educated guess on which hand ya use to flick the bean.” Sera said out of the Creator's damned blue as she popped a bit of cinnamon bun into her mouth.

I bolted out from under Cullen's arm, my own arm coming up to cover my face. “Creators, Sera! Seriously? Can you go like ten minutes without discussing my masturbatory habits in front of Cullen?”

She shrugged. “Nope.”

 

I was cleared to go home.

I was finally going _home_.

I had spent the better part of three weeks in the hospital under the watchful—but ultimately unhelpful—eyes of a handful of highly trained medical professionals.

There wasn’t anything they could do about the Fade induced nightmares.

Luckily for me, Cullen's presence managed to ease the worst of them.

Since our reunion, he had taken to spending the night at my bedside in Sera’s stead.

She was more than all right with it, since it meant that she could sleep in her own bed without feeling guilty about abandoning me.

I felt guilty that Cullen was missing work to spend time with me. Then Cassandra let it slip that Cullen had been temporarily suspended for punching Solas.

Because actions had consequences.

I felt sort of guilty for different reasons after that.

I wasn't sure how he had been managing sleeping in the bedside chair. Unlike Sera, who was a small, flexible, woman, he was a fully grown man who happened to be built like a lumberjack.

For my final night, I had insisted that Cullen spend the night in the bed with me, despite the nurses’ insistence that it was against regulations.

The final morning of my hospital stay was the first time since stopping the morphine that I hadn't woken up from a nightmare.

Cullen was spooning me, not that there was really all that much room in the bed for any position other than close cuddling. His arm was wrapped tightly around my waist, his hand cupping my breast, gently but firmly. His hips were pressed flush against my backside.

His large frame blocked me from the view of the door.

“This is strangely familiar.” I muttered as I shifted my ass against his erection, desire immediately coursing through my veins at the feel of him. We had been keeping things chaste the past couple of days. Barely kissing, but almost always touching in some way.

“Hmm?” He muttered sleepily, grip tightening a fraction. It took him a moment to register exactly what I had said. He abruptly started to pull away. “We don’t have to—that is, if you’re not feeling up to—I—Maker’s breath—“

I rolled in his loosened embrace, the move made somewhat awkward by my inability to put any weight on my left arm, and silenced his faltering with a kiss.

It started out subdued, but quickly became more. The languid motions of his lips against mine becoming hurried as his hand shifted to my hip, pulling me tight against him.

My hand twitched at his thigh. I was torn between feeling him up and pulling him closer. I had settled on the former when our alone time was abruptly interrupted.

“Oi, lovebirds, get a room.” Sera’s voice teased from the doorway.

Cullen pulled away and spared her a small smile over his shoulder. “We are, in fact, in a room, Sera.”

“And we’re even in a bed.” I added helpfully, peeking over his shoulder at her.

Sera made a face. “Ugh. The two of ya are gross. This is a public place, yeah? Anyone could just walk in and see ya goin’ at it.”

Cullen stiffened slightly at the revelation.

Apparently he hadn’t quite woken up enough to realize that our location wasn’t exactly private.

I shrugged. “I am strangely unbothered by that.”

Sera shook her head affectionately. “Are ya ready to go home, Ren?”

“Very much so.”

“Good. I brought ya some clothes.”

It took some finagling to get me into my clothes. I hadn't worn anything other than a hospital gown for my entire stay. So I wasn't used to the difficulties that real clothes presented as a newly one armed woman. But I was certainly glad for the real clothes. It was almost alarming how much better I felt in yoga pants and one of my numerous school sweaters.

After I changed, Cullen grabbed my things, and Sera grabbed my hand to escort me out of the room.

Dorian, Bull, Varric, and Cassandra had elected to wait for us in the lobby.

They had been discussing throwing me some sort of homecoming party.

As we exited the hospital, Sera slung an arm around my good shoulder. “So, there’s this new club called the Exalted Council, I was thinkin'—“

I turned to give her a reproachful glare. “Nope.”

She let go of me abruptly. “But—“

“Not going to happen.”

“But Bull works there—“

I turned to Bull. “Is it a front for some sort of drug smuggling business?”

“Almost definitely.” He replied with a smile tugging at his lips, as he moved past us to catch up to Dorian.

I turned back to Sera. “Absolutely not.”

She looked at me indignantly. “But ya got several big strong men to protect ya. And when they inevitably fail, ya’ve got me.”

“I only have one arm left, Sera. I would rather not lose it too.”

“Fine. Fine. How about a nice boring cup of coffee with your favorite boring weirdos, then?”

“I would like that.”

She skipped on ahead to share the plan with the others.

“Are you ready?” Cullen’s fingers entwined with mine, and he brushed a gentle kiss across my knuckles.

I smiled up at him. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

It didn’t matter what the future would bring.

I knew that I could face anything with him at my side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it.  
> The final chapter.
> 
> It's not the end though, there will be more to Renna's story. I haven't tortured the poor girl _nearly_ enough (cue maniacal laughter here).
> 
> But, still I'm having all the bittersweet author feels.
> 
> This has been quite the journey for me. This is the first time that i've actually written something start to finish that I don't actively hate. 
> 
> The first draft of this was 19 chapters and approximately 75,000 words. And this clocks in at 27 chapters and just under 125,000 words. Which is a lot of words.
> 
> Please subscribe if you're interested in the continuation of Renna and Cullen's story. I plan on having it ready sometime in the new year.
> 
> I promise that it will be a fantastic mess.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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